Dale Eugene Rohrer

This is a little late for Veterans day... but pertinent in this time of turmoil with so many service men and women away from home... I just found this poem my Dad wrote. For those of you who don't know, my father died of nephritis in 1955 (the same disease my daughter now has). The disease was present as a child, but he recovered. Then it flared up again while he was in New Guinea. -- Brenda

Somewhere In The South Pacific

By Dale Rohrer

(Written by my Dad while in New Guinea in World War II. This was in "a couple of newspapers" according to my grandmother. I found this newspaper clipping in her desk.)

Somewhere in the South Pacific,

Where the sun is like a curse;

Where each hot day is followed,

By another slightly worse;

Where the coral dust is thicker,

Than the shifting desert sand;

And homesick boys are dreaming,

Of a lovelier, cooler land.

Somewhere in the South Pacific,

Where a girl is never seen;

Where the sky is never cloudy,

And the grass is sickly green;

Where the gooney birds guss nightly,

Robbing man of precious sleep;

And there isn't any whisky,

Only memories to keep.

Out here in the South Pacific,

Where the sun bakes all the ground;

Ice is a dismal failure,

And your skin is turning brown;

Here you get so tired, so lonesome,

For those you left behind;

But you write them all a letter,

Telling them you're feeling fine.

Somewhere in the South Pacific,

When you try to read in bed;

You wind up in a fox hole,

Dodging ack-ack overhead;

Where you get so tired of eating "K" ration every day,

And work becomes a pleasure,

Just to pass the time away.

Way out here in the tropics,

The mosquitoes own the place,

Perspiration always cutting,

Furrows down across your face;

Where your days are surely numbered,

Your head pointed toward the ground;

You're pretty sure you're headed for that one last go-round.

Somewhere in the South Pacific,

Where they "say" the trade winds blow;

And your thoughts always turning,

Back to the ones you used to know;

Where the moon is shining mighty,

In a star-bespeckled sky;

And you try so very hard to hide,

The tears in your eyes.

Someday in the South Pacific,

A battle will be won;

Stars and Stripes replace forever,

Banner of "Rising Sun";

Then take me back to America,

The land we love so well;

For the tropical New Guinea,

Nestles awfully close to hell.