First Special Service Force
6th CO, 3rd REG
Living History Group Member: HRS

The Dusty Hat
Harry L. Caroll
Service Company, F.S.S.F
Written on the road from Anzio to Rome, 5 June 1944


One day I found a dusty hat.
The hat was crushed by a steel mat
of rusty metal cleats and blanks
which are the claw-like feet of tanks.

A war had passed this way today.
But thanks to God it did not stay!
Under a lifeless tree he sat-
The owner of that dusty hat.

And there a lonely orphan sat.
As I returned his dusty hat.
He tried between his sobs and sighs
to tell of death from out the skies.

It was told in a faltering tongue-
uttered by one by far too young
to know or even reason why
greedy mankind must war and die.

And though his words meant naught to me
the helpless, homeless waif of three
conveyed with a nod of his head
what thousands of words could not have said..