Not An Option

My brother was called up to go in the army,
just like Elvis, not so famous but good looking,
they made him paint coal white amongst other things,
cut grass with scissors, that's what discipline brings.

He became an associate of mech. and elec. engineers,
the academic, although strangely he didn't look like one;
I missed conscription, of me they could not hold,
but he was used to doing what he was told.

I wondered how I would have been without instruction,
not itinerant, irresponsibility was not an option:
I had no training, didn't know what I was doing,
bumbled along, surviving one debacle after another.

However, the words that arise within me if I could utter,
lady luck steered me to have my bum in the butter.