FIDDLERS GREEN

"FIDDLERS GREEN"

The story of Fiddler's Green was published in 1923, in Cavalry Journal.[6] According to this article, it was inspired by a story told by Captain "Sammy" Pearson at a campfire in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming. It is still used by modern cavalry units to memorialize the deceased. The name has had other military uses. Today, in the heart of the Helmand River Valley, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the U.S. Marine Corps operates a firebase (FB) named Fiddler's Green. Fiddler’s Green was an artillery Fire Support Base in Military Region III in Vietnam in 1972 occupied principally by elements of 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, and also was the name of the U.S. Navy's enlisted men's club in Sasebo, Japan from 1952 to 1976. It was the name of the enlisted men's club at Bainbridge Naval Training Center. The informal bar at the Fort Sill Officers' Open Mess used to be known as Fiddler's Green and it is the name of the stable and pasture used by Parsons Mounted Cavalry, a cadet group at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, and that of the bar at the Leaders Club in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Building 2805, which used to be the O-club, on Fort Hood, Texas is called Fiddler's Green. There is also a small E-club on Camp Pendleton in area 43 (Las Pulgas) named for it.
Conolly's song

A song based on Fiddler's Green, called Fiddler's Green or more often Fo'c'sle Song, was written and copyrighted by John Conolly, a Lincolnshire (English) songwriter, and is sung worldwide in nautical and Irish traditional circles, often being mistakenly thought a traditional song.[7]
The Cavalrymen's Poem

Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.

Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green.

And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.