Military Cadence - Bawdy Jody

 I live close to the Ft.Moore (previously called Ft.Benning) Army base. One day I met one young US Marine who told me about cadences - the work songs sung while doing PT (Physical Training) in military. He was very candid about those, admitting without any remorse that more profane they were, more mojo it brought to their Amry workouts. One such story is about JODY, the fictitious doppelganger having all the pleasure at home at the expense of the poor G I Joe (American army guy) deployed abroad. Here is the limerick cadence dedicated to our JODY. 

Ain't no use going back

Jody's got your Cadillac

Ain't no use calling home

Jody got your girl and gone.

Ain't no use feeling blue

Jody's got your sister too.

He took away my faded Jeans

Now I am wearing Army Greens. 

The list doesn't end there. Many such bawdy ballads are attributed to an old man's lascivious escapades with a young girl. The Army Sergeant would yell these following limerick to motivate the young recruits - 

With Old man on bed, young girl had no clue.

But he f**ked and f**ked until he turned blue.

It was followed the marching Marines parroting these lines after him. It would keep the young soldiers going. No popular song or religious sermon can match these cadences to shrug off the jaded nerves of the army brats barely in their teens and twenties to march along. 

It is analogous to our Hindi counterpart used by folks back home in India to lift or pull any heavy object - 

LAGAO JOR HAIN SA,

JOR LAGAKE HAIN SA. 

Transliterated...

(Give it a big bang,

Give it a big hand). 

During my childhood I once saw a large electric pole getting installed close to a field near BJB Flats, Bhubaneswar where my father was quartered in. A bunch of laborers while trying to lift the heavy pole up on the ground chimed in unison - 

"KAALIA SANDHA HEINSA,

TA NAALIA B***A HEINSA". 

Roughly transliterated -

"Hail the Black Bull,

His Red Cock helps us Pull".

I am sure if this will be replaced by a stanza from Tulsidas Bhajan or Jagannath Janana they will hardly motivated, their adrenalin won't pump enough for them to get their job accomplished. The pole would never get installed in the ground. 

The Odia equivalent would be the famous or rather infamous chants locally called RATH BOLI (chariot chants) to enthuse the crowd during the annual Rath Yatra (car festival) in Puri. Those chants by the charioteer is now banned for being too salacious and replaced by sagacious Sanskrit SLOKAs (hymns). 

Titillating, naughty naughty humor relating to a old man's desire for a much younger girl in order to stimulate soldiers are abound from old times. In 1857 the British roped in  Balochis, Punjabi Muslims, Dogras, Gorkhas and Sikhs, a bulk of the Sardarjees forming the famed unit "Hudson's Horse" who fought gallantly along with the British to mercilessly quell the Sepoy Mutiny in Delhi. During the nights after consuming their ration of Rum and "Kukkad" (Chicken) the Sikh mercenaries would vigorously clap and sing a lewd Punjabi song ascribing a short, old man struggling to make love to a tall she camel. It motivated the tough Sikh fighters relieve their stress after a hectic day of fight. The "Goras" (Englishmen) would call General Hudson's trusted Sikh aide and ask him who he was, to which the innocent Sardar would answer in heavy Punjabi accent "I'm Hudson's Arse" (he was in Hudson's Horse unit). The "Firangies" (foreigners) would burst into bouts of laughter. 

The glut of smut about young women and much older men is not limited to military. During my college days in REC, Rourkela I had a Malayali roommate who would sing a loud song with half a dozen Keralites around him laughing in chorus. Curious me once asked him to translate the song to me. He went on recounting the saga of a Malayali old man's lustful desire for a 16 year old girl and so on. 

Bulls or Military Boys, nothing can actuate a man more than a bawdy jokes. Women crack salacious "AINSIA" (non-vegeg jokes as they say in India) too, but lot softer versions of their men counterpart, keeping them strictly to themselves (exceptions are some Punjabi ladies who can match the hard dirty jokes of their men). But the fact remains that raunchy lines can motivate a man to move a mountain more than any religious sermon.