My name is John E. Cotton.
John or Johnnie will do.
I just want you to know that.
Either name will do.
Just yesterday I came here,
me and, I think, Dan.
We were dumped here in the jungle
and then the ambush began.
They say that I'm with 3rd Squad
and we sit here by this tree.
You're all talking of how it was fought
and how it came to be.
I'm trying real hard to fit here
but I don't know what to do.
So I am just kind of following your lead,
this has to see me through.
I wonder at you tough veterans:
how do you time your day--
how do you know when to just lay low,
or stand, spitting lead in the fray?
But, even you, as the fight did show,
were caught indiscriminately.
And I saw you taken either broken or cold
but right now your names escape me.
So, though I just came, remember my name.
You can say it was John or Johnnie.
So, if I go back with a quick medivac,
that you knew is important to me.
