In this post I simply want to highlight why I believe people should hire me as a Freelance Web Developer. As well as my testimonials from previous (and current) clients I have a number of favourable qualities which I know are in great demand:
Loyalty
Honesty
Dedication
Integrity
Very hard working
Good at communication (mostly nightly updates via email)
Reliable
My latest project is a package for the Laravel 4 PHP Framework and can be found on github . As you can see my coding style is very much Object Oriented (OOP). It has taken several years for me to refine my coding style to one that I am now proud of.
I hope that this short post has been a help to you in your quest for knowledge and I hope to hear from you soon.
I see things differently and I imagine differently than a proportion of my fellow ex/current servicemen/women. Instead of it being “For 15 yrs he stood up front for you” I read “He had 15 years to learn the Geneva Convention but didn’t bother”; let me re-phrase that – After 15 years I can guarantee you that he knew the constraints placed on him by the Geneva Convention but took a concious decision to ignore them.
Before anybody tries to argue that I would have done the same in his position I shall give you a little of my military background.
I have been in charge of specialist small teams with no backup for tens of miles in either direction, I have taken P.O.Ws myself and I have seen much action in my 3 Tours of Iraq and 1 Tour of Afghanistan and I am extremely proud if the fact that I have abided by the Geneva Convention constraints.
As the commander on the ground (usually in charge of 3 other people in a role I cannot and will not disclose) I often had to make snap decisions while under enemy fire and I never did anything less than what was expected of me.
Marine A made a concious decision to shoot a person. When he did this he had that very person under his protection. That’s right, you read that correctly the first time. He was under the protection of Marine A. The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War sets out clear guidelines on how injured combatants should be treated. Once he found the Taliban member injured he had a duty to dress his wounds and protect him from further harm. It may indeed be argued that the person in question was a civilian and not a combatant.
The recorded audio was quite damning. Marine A was not under enemy fire when he shot his Taliban prisoner. He was calmly in conversation with 2 sub-ordinate marines. As part of Marine A’s duties he was in charge of showing a good example to his 2 younger marines.
In my opinion Marine A not only committed murder he disgraced his uniform and his country. Now the Taliban are able to say “It’s nothing you wouldn’t do to us” when they executed British hostages. No longer are able to hold the moral high ground and we now look like a 2-bit army with no discipline.
The conviction was the correct one under the circumstances and is to serve as a lesson to those in the Armed Forces who think that they can take the law into their own hands.
It is a real shame that a Marine who devoted 15 outstanding years of his life to the protection of his, Queen, Country, Brigade and fellow Royal Marine Commandos made such a poor decision. Perhaps he was suffering from the effects of war and was lead by them. I know that part of war only too well as I myself suffer from P.T.S.D. Indeed this is one area where the British Military needs to change. On the face of it The British Army is trying to offer mental health help but I have been informed by many of my ex-colleagues that in reality the fear that many Service personnel still have about P.T.S.D being a career killer is in fact still the norm.
What do you think?
Which ever side of the fence you sit on I would welcome your thoughts on this subject. Am I being harsh or have I hit the nail on the head? Please let me know in the comments section below.
On my way back from walking Rowan to school this morning I opened up my pocket list and read a post that I had been meaning to read for a week or so.
It was by Sgt. Eric Williams of the U.S. Army. He wrote a blog post days before he was due to return to the U.S. from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately Sgt. Williams was killed on his way back to his home country. His post however serves as a reminder to all of what many of us feel after we have been to war. I remember coming back to the U.K. after my first tour of Iraq and thinking “Look at everybody. They are just carrying on as if nothing is happening. The live in a world of green countryside, friendly people and comparative wealth and many think that they have it bad. They just haven’t got a clue”.
It is a sad fact that many veterans like Sgt. Williams and myself feel a barrier is now between themselves and civilian society. They can never understand what it is like to witness war first hand. Even now I am not able to watch the news on TV (thank you ISIS you Pricks!), I have an appointment with my Doctor in a few weeks to discuss my deteriorating mental condition (as well as my recovery following back surgery (but this is secondary)).
As a follow up to my initial post Living with PTSD I now plan on a follow up post on the things that Sgt Williams raised.
I love my job. Unfortunately I haven’t had much work in lately. I had to take quite a bit of time off in the run up to my operation as it got to the point where I couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to work x amount of hours. This meant that I had plenty of time to work on my skills and am now a much better coder because of it. It also means that I effectively had to start freelance again as the limited client base that I did have now have nothing for me as yet.
My job gives me a great deal of satisfaction and the project that I am doing gives me a great sense of pride; and so I continue plodding along with my cup of tea in front of me; my classical music playing to keep my mood level whilst I write about subjects that normally affect me emotionally.
If I don’t work this morning I will sit back and dwell on Sgt. William’s post. Instead. I shall be working and enjoying myself knee deep in the wonderful life of web development.
Right…that’s it for now. Everybody get back to work and stop using me as an excuse 😉
If you did manage to get this far though; well done and thank you 🙂
This is a message I received from a good Army Buddy yesterday. Such a shame that so many of use leave it too long before getting help 🙁
Mate have just read your ptsd site. As someone suffering even tho still in I just wanted to applaud your courage and bravado by speaking out
I've lost everything good I had by not dealing and am now that sad singlie living in the mess after going socially destructive.
Your work is inspirational bro. I haven't disclosed my problems to others (which similar to you is cied related but afghan) but you've made me realise I need to tackle it. Thank you.
Last night a young girl was running around the street at around 23:00 (11pm) screaming for help. Her Mother had fainted and both my wife and I went across as well as a lady from half way down the street. She had had an epileptic fit and was nearly unconscious. I rendered first aid but had to go back across when she was more awake as our son was fast asleep in bed (my wife went across to check on him every few minutes).
It emerged that her ex-partner had beaten her up in the house earlier in the day and smashed the place up. What makes it worse is that the woman is pregnant.
Why I intend to interfere.
Normally I don’t interfere in neighbours’ situations but then I don’t know anybody that beats up females. However this is not the only factor that has swayed my decision. This woman is pregnant and if he did it again there could be a chance that life could be extinguished.
If I didn’t interfere then a woman who has kids already may lose her child it’s as simple as that.
That would mean that 10 years of service in the British Army would have been for nothing and all the time helping people in other countries would have been a waste of time.
Sometimes when one has chronic pain it is good if one can keep an eye on one's pain levels. This can be good for a number of reasons
When visiting a Doctor or specialist it is good if you can provide them with a graphical representation or not only when you pain was bad but when your pain was at it's least troublesome.
It helps to identify patterns that we as Humans in pain may not spot otherwise
How much do the pain killers actually reduce the pain by?
How long do the pain killers last for?
Were you aware that your pain is always at it's worst a few hours after you do your physio exercises?
It provides health care professionals with much more information that you can convey in conversation
Personal Experience
Around 5 years ago I had a customer built CMS which had at it's heart an in-depth pain level feature. It reminded me every 30-60 minutes to enter my pain levels and I had to remember to manually enter specific information such as when I ate; what meds I took; my sleep patterns etc and at the end (or whenever I requested one) I could print out a nice chart with all the information on it I needed. It included a legend that told the person viewing it what all the symbols meant (such as taking food in; went to sleep etc).
When I took this to my Doctor as part of the process of trying to figure out why I was in so much pain he was amazed and told my that this provided him with too much information to take in there and then but it would prove to be very useful. He asked if he could keep it to view when he had a spare ten minutes and after that he told me that it was part of his decision to send me to a specialist for an MRI scan.
The Plan
Well for this project I am going to re-create and expand on that simple tool I used back then. Planned features include
A Wiki
A link to the main input form will always be in the main menu
A Google Chrome extension so that you do not have to have the site loaded in order to input data
A medication reminder
An API
Export to PDF, CSV etc for portability
Different Profiles (should you wish to keep back pain separate from say Neck pain)
Personal profile so that you can get advice on your environment eg you need to drink more water
Import data eg from a running device
iOS and Android apps enabling you to both enter information and get charts etc when you are away from home (these are planned for when enough income has been generated to pay for them)
Share or email the charts/graphs (handy to send them to your medical practitioner prior to appointments)
Reason for the site
In the future (app. 6 months) I may be having an operation to set me rouge disc in my spine back into place and pin it there. Currently I am experiencing severe pain resulting from trapped nerves. Part of the process of managing the pain is in my mind knowing all about it. Knowledge (as they say) is power. It helped me before to maximise on the things that made the pain better and minimise on the things that made them worse – I see no reason why it cannot do the same again.
Conclusion
I'm sure that you'll agree that this is a fantastic project and I can assure you that there is currently no such facility widely available on the internet that offers what I'm proposing.
If you have any feedback or think of any features that I have not come up with please feel free to comment below. I shall take all suggestions seriously and consider this to be my pet project for the foreseeable future.
I take you through Holocaust Memorial Day – how the mind when it’s surrounded by death, a survivor’s story & try to decide whether the correct lessons have been learnt.
Why not support me on my journey. Click on the above logo to sponsor me.
Sponsor form link is the logo above
My Training
Week 1 Review
Well, my first training week has finished and I’ll pleased to say that I’m still with it although currently I have lost all hearing in my left ear which puts training in jeopardy.
This week’s training involved 3 sessions at 750m and 1 session yesterday of 1km. Here are the bulletin points of what I’ve discovered this week.
Bad points
There are more bad points than I care to mention: as a backstroker I have never had to concern myself with the finer details of the breast stroke.
Breathing – It has been so long since I undertook an exercise regime that my lungs have lost all their restive qualities and this is holding my technique up.
I can only go for half to three quarters of a length with a proper breathing technique (head underwater and looking down to breath out then lift head up to breath in). This is due to the above point – breathing.
My technique – although this is getting much better I am still struggling to get the details of the arms/leg techniques correct. Like I said this is getting much better with practice and from watching videos on youTube etc.
Times – As the lengths I have to swim increase (the next one will be 55 lengths/1.3km/0.8 mile which will take an estimated 1 hour 1 minute but when I get up to 106 lengths/2.7km/1.7 miles it will take me 2 hours (at my current pace) this will obviously put a major scupper in the works as the lane swimming is only open at certain times and may have to adjust my swimming times to go for the very longest sessions I can get.
Not being able to hear anything in my left ear – this started after my swimming session yesterday and a shower. The very worst thing that can happen is the Doctor (if the problem gets that far) says that I should lay off of the swimming for a while. If this happens I will have to practice my technique on chairs and try and recreate the muscle groups exercises.
Good points
Practice makes perfect (or better) – The more I practice the more I get better. This is evident even after a single week (or 3 swimming sessions) and the more I concentrate on the breast stroke the better I will become at it. Once I have mastered a decent breast stroke I shall be moving onto the front crawl. I have concentrated on the breast stroke first as this is the hardest. By the time I have mastered the breast stroke my lungs will be string enough to cope with the breathing style of the crawl and this should hopefully be much easier to learn as the breast stroke as it is MUCH more like the back stroke that I am used to.
Determination – If there’s one thing that I have it is a determination to finish what I start
Support – I have a fantastic support team around me. I know that my lovely wife is always there for me and should I ever need encouragement then my social media circle of friends is always ready to offer some words of encouragement.
Finances – I/my family are in the lucky position to be able to afford the gym membership that is required for me to carry on training. The very thought of doing 200 lengths without these training sessions terrifies me. The theory of train hard – race easy is one that I believe in and planned for. This is visible from my training structure and I have planned to swim up to 6km/240 lengths/3.7 miles) in training but this of course depends on my timings and the time I can get in the pool.
General
This is about it. I have already started work on myswimathon.co.uk site and I am looking for feedback as to what features people would like to see in this site.
Monday, 3rd February, 2014
Today was the start of my rather harsh training program. I initially got the timetable for my training milestones incorrect and accidentally added another 2 months on. When I discovered this it came as a major shock when I had to re-calculate and compress the training schedule.
One mistake I made today was to trust in my memory for the amount of distance I had to cover in the session. I believed it was 30 lengths (which I did) but when I got back I discovered it was actually only 20 lengths and so I’d swum/swam an extra 250m.
The training itself
Today I re-discovered the long forgotten muscles that are needed for swimming. I was mainly concentrating on the breaststroke and about 95% of the lengths I did were exclusively using that stroke.
I now know what I must do in order to progress with my training in 2 days time (Wednesday). I desperately need to concentrate on stroke technique as my stroke today was terrible. I was not sitting well in the water at all. My body was far from horizontal and I had an aversion to putting my head fully in the water. I have no doubt that when my stroke technique improves then the rest will fall into place. I need to get on the internet and look up training videos and ‘dry’ training stroke exercises to do tomorrow night.
My timings are also massively off. I took my timings for the distances that I have to do from my native backstroke times. These are 3 times faster than the breaststroke times I achieved today. This means that should my current times not get any better – the final 5km swim would take me a whopping 5 hours. Again: Once my breaststroke improves I am confident these times will drop.
My session on Wednesday involved swimming 30 lengths (the distance I did today) and so I’m confident in my abilities though maybe my muscles may not agree come Wednesday.
So this is all about the 2014 Swimathon. Yesterday I decided to enter and I set myself the goal of 2.5km (1.55 mile). This was to be a major challenge for me as I have never swum anywhere near that sort of distance before. Today I decided to increase the challenge by going from the 2.5km up to the maximum of 5km (3.1 miles) – a huge distance that will require all my mental as well as physical effort.
Challenges
The most I have swam in the past has probably been about 500m during the short time that I was competing. These were 30m & 50m sprint events though.
By nature and by training I am/was a back-stroker. During the Swimathon I am not able to do the back-stroke and as such have to train on the strokes that have only used when forced to go slow on lane swimming.
Finances – In order to complete a 3 mile swim I am going to have to train quite a bit. This means a gym membership as well as some new goggles and a length counting watch. There is no way I’m going to manually count the 200 lengths that I have to swim so I have bought a relatively cheap automatic length counting watch off of eBay.
Followers
I hope to take you all on a journey from start to finish with a range of video as well as literary (well, an attempt at literary) posts.
Next month I should be getting my new phone which by coincidence will take not only photos but videos underwater. This will give me a great tool to allow you to join me on this journey.
MySwimathon.co.uk
I’m proud to announce that I’ve already purchased the name myswimathon.co.uk so that after this year’s adventure is over I can set up a portal so that anybody who takes part in the Swimathon next year will be able to give their friends, family and supporters a web address to look up. The fundraisers will then have a portal in which to upload content of their own and write their own blogs. Needless to say there may be the odd additional option such as for the corporate teams wish to make the page their own corporate identities on the page instead of the site’s own . This is for after I’ve done my bit this year and I see what’s possible.
For this year I will probably use it as the base for my event updates but I’m busy working and once I catch up I’ll get to work on that
After having PTSD for around 4 years now I thought I’d share with you what life is like as a PTSD sufferer. I consider myself to have a mild case of PTSD and I’m aware of many more people that have the condition much worse than I.
My PTSD thought process
An example
The other day I was having a discussion on Twitter which involved my usual extremist ways of dealing with people that break the law. The tweet that set my brain in a descending spiral of anger had mentioned that if I had my way the Army would have been brought in for the London riots of 2011. This set off a trigger that made my brain go down a similar route to previous episodes.
I start to think that some people (in this case the rioters) are very ungrateful of the sacrifices that I and others have made. Had it not been for people like me willing to risk our very lives being completely obliterated leaving those that we love totally mortified, they would not be able to enjoy the freedom they take great pleasure in flouting.
This increases my anger
I then start to think about the things that I and people like me have done in order to ensure that these morons retain their freedom (by this point they are the lowest form of scum on the planet and my mind is stuck in a downward spiral).
This gives my brain a chance to feel sorry for itself
The Favoured Incident
The time in history my brain usually decides to bring to the front and push in front of my eyes; nose; ears (& parts of my body that technically do not have senses) is a specific job when I was a member of the Bomb Disposal Team on my third tour of Iraq.The job involved going to suicide bomber that had already decided to share his hatred for the world with others. Whilst they were a few lifeless bodies laying on the floor, they were nothing that we didn’t see day in; day out.
After a short time on operational tour you forget that these lifeless bodies that you see in front of you are actually someone’s Son; Daughter; Mother; Father; Brother; Sister; Wife or Husband. Instead you see what is logical with the emotions stripped from the situation: you see an empty shell/corpes.
The reason that this job stands out is the sensory overload that was actually left after the operation had finished. Although at the time it was something that shocked me in many different ways, it was something that was quickly put to the back of my mind as we moved on with the various jobs that we received.
This is the sort of thing that we had several times a day (click to see full size image)
After a year or so my business failed which co-coincided with the re-occurrence of two recurring injuries I picked up in my time in the Army. The fact that my business had failed and I had nothing to occupy my time meant that for the first time in a long time my mind had a chance to relax. As it turned out this happened to be a negative outcome. My mind was now relaxed and I was starting to suffer from depression from the failure of my business and the loss of my only means of income.
It soon became apparent that my mind was suffering more than it was telling me. I would avoid having a shower for a week at a time as when I got in there the feel of the water running down my face caused flashbacks of another bad job that we had (on the same tour) when we had to wash the blood and dirt from our faces. Even the thought of a shower and the flashbacks would fill me with dread. This meant that my depression got worse which in turn led to my physical conditions getting worse and so started the downward spiral.
The well known downward spiral of pain and depression
Luckily my fantastic GP and the support team around him quickly diagnosed that I was suffering from PTSD and gave me the tools to cope with it. I would like to say that they have cured me of it but I don’t think the condition will ever leave me and I believe it is now about managing with it as best I can.
A good friend of mine Bill Waters also pointed out that
Drinking is not frowned upon as much as it is in civvy street so we are able to use it as an emotional crutch under the guise of work hard play hard. I think a lot of service men and women will suffer when they leave the service because that life style/comeraderie can not be replicated in civilian life and I believe that that in itself could be a trigger.”
In me it wasn’t evident straight away what was wrong with me. Obviously not showering and flashbacks were a good indicator but the general depression brought on my PTSD also led to a lack of patience and with a new son this was not a good thing.
Things came to a head when I had been self harming for a few weeks. By this point It looked like I’d been having an affair with Cat Woman (incidentally one of my Wife’s nicknames). In order to cope with one of my toddler’s tantrums I had to leave the room and drew every fingernail on my right hand from my left shoulder all the way down in one diagonal stroke to the right side of my stomach as hard as I could. Although it drew blood and hurt it wasn’t enough and so I filled my hands with hand sanitizer and spread it all over my torso – now that hurt. This was the first of the self-harming incidents that was visible to my Wife and she then became very worried (even more than she already was). I have to say that my son never saw me self-harm although he witnessed the outcome of the above incident.
The outcome of my self-harming was a calm feeling and a massive release of tension in my body. I am unable to explain it but when things got bad I just wanted to hurt myself and when I did I felt much better; as if a great big weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
The above incident was the final straw for me and the sheer thought that there was a possibility that my son may witness such an incident or start noticing the results meant that I had to seek professional help.
How I reversed the downward spiral
Again – thanks to the brilliant help my Barnsley Primary Care Trust /NHS and after seeing several different people I was given access to the back to fitness program. This gave me a 6 month gym membership for free to do anything I wanted in the local leisure centre. As a former swimmer and given the chronic back pain that I had I decided to concentrate on just swimming. I went most mornings and I saw the benefits almost straight away. I had to use a walking stick to walk with less frequency and after a few months I was actually able to look for work that would help me get even better.
I began to deliver Betterware and then Avon books. This allowed me to carry on the physical side of the treatment and the very fact that I was once again earning money and contributing to society was a massive Phycological step forward.
There it was, the downward spiral had been reversed. I was exercising again – this gave me a better mood and the fact that I was earning contributed even more. My physical conditions got much better and I no longer had to spend 18 hours a day laid on a floor unable to move.
PTSD Coping Techniques
Grounding
My second (more specialised councillor) taught me about a technique called grounding. I had to decide on an item or aspect of my life that would remind me that I wasn’t surrounded by sandy climates or in danger but was instead back in my home Town of Barnsley and was surrounded by the people I love.
Rowan Evans: Come on Down!
As I was a new Father at the time and I was a house-husband (with not so much emphasis on the house) I chose my lovely baby boy. He would always be there and at the time this was quite literally true. If I went somewhere, so did he and visa versa.
From then on, If I experienced an episode or flashback I could look at him or (if I was away from him) take something out of my pocket that belonged to him and I knew that the grounding strategy was working. This in itself would relax me and as I would always be extracting myself from the cause & go straight home to where I was safe – things would soon get better.
My fantastic Wife bought me this for this [2013] Christmas to keep on my desk for when my son is not there and in case of a PTSD incident
Music
I find that music is a great help when I’m feeling down and particularly when having a PTSD “episode”. For me it has to be chilled out classical music: usually (unless I’m in a really bad state of affairs) chilled out classical music will calm me right down and make me forget my troubles. To a lesser extent there is music from the lovely voices of Alison Moyet and Adele.
This CD nearly always calms me down and relaxes me massively
Modern Times
Moving onto more modern times. I still have bad memories and flashbacks. The latter are the worse and are a common occurrence in dreams and they often immerse me in the world I was once in. I see what I saw then; I hear what I heard then; I smell what I smelled then; I feel what I felt then (the sense of trying to anticipate what was going to happen next etc); this is even extended to senses that aren’t well…senses (hard to explain so I won’t try).
There are many days when I actively suffer from PTSD and there are many days (like today) when an incident happens and I know it’s one of my triggers so I do my best to try and keep calm. I am not in a position to carry my son around with me all the time and so I have to try and manage it myself. It is not easy.
Today I walked past to late teens/early twenties males walking down from Town and they each had a bottle of alcohol with them, openly drinking them during the early hours of the afternoon. It may be that they had just finished a shift but more than likely they had spent the money that we pay in taxes to buy booze instead of getting a job. This is a very common trigger for me. It helps if I’m not alone but if I am I find that listening to music through headphones whilst walking provides a decent distraction and gives me something to focus on when I encounter a trigger.
In general the lives of my family has been changed. I can no longer watch any programs that could involve exploding cars or things on fire and if I manage to catch a news report that contains something along these lines my mood changes for the worst for the next few hours at least.
My Wife – My Saviour
My lovely Wife has told me that she knows I dream of these times as she can hear me crying in my sleep. She is also aware of what sort of visual queues set my PTSD off and gives me warnings when I am out of the room. My Wife has stuck with through me all the bad time regardless of how bad I have been or how bad my condition(s) have gotten. Even when I had to spend 18 hours a day lying on the floor unable to earn money she has been the unflinching concrete post that has been supporting me and offering both emotional as well as physical help.
PTSD Facts
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 11%-20% of veterans of Iraq and/or Afghanistan will suffer from PTSD. Read More
Interestingly, it also says that only 5% of all men will suffer from PTSD where 10% of all women will suffer from PTSD in their lifetime.
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists PTSD does not have to related to a specific event. It can
also be triggered by less acute, but equally distressing and longer-lasting traumas, such as ongoing mistreatment, and physical or sexual abuse in the home.”
Even today this poem rings true. As a squaddie I was often ostracised for being such but when needed things always changed.
I WENT into a public ‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ” We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away ” ;
But it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul? “
But it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes ” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes, ” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! “
But it’s ” Saviour of ‘is country ” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An ‘Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
