Surfman Badge

When the bars are white and yeasty, and the shoals are all a-frothing, When the Nor'easter's cutting like a knife; Through the seethin' roar and screech he's patroling on the beach, The Government's hired man for saving life.

He's a-breaking ribs and muscles launching lifeboats in the surges, He's dripping wet and chilled in every bone, He's a-bringing men from death, back to flesh and blood and breath, And never stops to think about his own.

He is draggin' draggled corpes from the clutches of the combers, The kind of job a common man would shirk; But he takes them from the waves and fit them for graves, And he thinks it's all included in his work.

He is a rigger, rower, swimmer, sailor, doctor, undertaker, And he's good at every one of them the same; And he risks his life for others in the quicksand and the breakers, And a thousand wives and mothers bless his name.

He's an angel dressed in oilskins; he's a saint in the "Sou'wester," He's a pluck as they come, or ever can; He's a hero born and bred, but it hasn't swelled his head, For he's just the U.S. Government's hired man.