NCIS
Hawaii 5-O
9-1-1

Anthony DiNozzo
Steve McGarrett
Even Buckley

Green Fields
A Soldier’s Lament

Tony had first met the ones who would become his two best friends as he was Afloat. At the time, he was serving his punishment tour onboard the Reagan in the Gulf as Lt Commander McGarrett and his men were there between tours. McGarrett’s newest recruit was a fresh fish named Buckley, who was such an eager thing.

Well, how do you do young Willie McBride?
do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside
and rest for a while ‘neath the warm summer sun
I’ve been walkin’ all day and I’m nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
when you joined the great fallen of 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Willie McBride was it slow and obscene

The three kept each other company in between training and work until each was transferred out with McGarrett and his team headed off to missions deeper in country and Tony off to the Seahawk nearer South America.

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus,
did the pipes play the “Flowers of the Forest”

They kept in contact as best they could despite their ports of service, one or the other of the group there for the hard times of the others.

And the beautiful wife or the sweetheart for life
in some faithful heart are you forever enshrined
and although you died back in 1916
in that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
or are you a stranger without even a name
enshrined forever behind a glass pane
in an old photograph torn tattered and stained,
fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

It was the newly commissioned McGaerett that Tony called right before being shipped off to Israel, and it was Commander McGarrett who got Vance in trouble with the other alphabets for what he tried to get away with and from there got Vance blacklisted from getting any help from them until he made amends with his agent again publicly.

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus,
did the pipes play the “Flowers of the Forest”

Tony and the new Firefighter, Buck Buckley, forced their higher ups to give them the emergency family leave time through channels. Tony used the debts owed him from Vance and Gibbs, while Buck used his connection with the retired SEAL Fire Chief Delko. All to get to Oahu where McGarrett was now burying his father after killing the man who murdered him.

Now the sun shines down on the green fields of France
a warm summer wind makes the red poppy’s dance
The trenches have vanished under the plows,
there’s no gas no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now
but here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s land,
the countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
for man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
to a whole generation that was butchered and damned

Tony called in his last favor with Vance to get transferred out to Pearl to take on a partnership with McGarrett’s recently commissioned 5-O while Buck received his transfer through Delko to work locally at a SAR station and away from the toxic station he had been stationed at.

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus,
did the pipes play the “Flowers of the Forest”

All three of them thought the deal 5-O got was too good too be true so using other connections, investigations under everyone’s radar started which brought down the last links to what caused McGarrett’s father to be killed down.

They all stood in dress uniform with Tony in his best suit, at McGarrett Sr’s grave in remembrance.

Now Willie McBride I can’t help wonder why
Do those who lie here do they know why they died
Did they really believe when they answered the call
did they really believe that this war would end wars
Forever this song of suffering and shame
the killing the dying was all done in vain
for young Willie McBride it’s all happened again,
and again, and again, and again and again

Fin
8/6/2026