human
Can you continue this poem for me?
  "I was there"
with the
Yours the pain to bear,
Ours the golden service stripes,
Yours the marks of care.
The old Earth ever knew,
Was ours and in this little book
'Twould still belong to you!
Form a line!
Get in line!
From the time that I enlisted
And since Jerry armististed
I've been standing, kidding, cussing,
I've been waiting, fuming, fussing,
In a line.
I have stood in line in mud and slime and sleet,
With the dirty water oozing from my feet,
I have soaked and slid and slipped,
While my tacky slicker dripped,
And I wondered what they'd hand me out to eat.
Get in line!
For supplies and for inspections,
With the dust in four directions,
For a chance to scrub the dirt off,
In the winter with my shirt off,
In a line.
I have sweated in an August training camp,
That would make a prohibition town look damp,
Underneath my dinky cap
While the sun burned off my map
And I waited for some gold-fish (and a cramp!).
Get in line!
For rice, pay-day, pills, and ration,
For corned-willy, army fashion,
In Hoboken, in the trenches,
In a station with the Frenchies,
In a line.
I've been standing, freezing, sweating,
Pushing, shoving, wheezing, fretting,
And I won't be soon forgetting
Though I don't say I'm regretting
That I stood there, with my buddies,
In a line.
(men bathing from canvas bucket)]
The Headquarters Company of the Reserve Mallet taking its bath at
Y.M.C.A. Water is heated in the old farm fire-place.
I ran into Johnny Redlegs
A-sitting on his bus,
And I asked him why the devil
He dropped half his shells on us.
He just smiles and puffs his corn-cob,
assistant
Sure, a continuation for this poem could be:
  As peaceful as a Persian,
And, "Buddy," says he, "you can't blame me,
You gotta blame dispersion."
I says to Johnny Redlegs,
"If I didn't have nine lives
Your barrage would have got me
With those lousy seventy-fives."
He grins and puffs his corn-cob,
And then he winks, reflective,
And, "Buddy," says he, "you can't blame me
If you pass your damn objective."
I says to Johnny Redlegs
(Just kidding him, you know),
"The trouble with your popgun is
She pops too gol-darned slow."
Then Redlegs drops his corn-cob
And spits on both his han's,
And, "Buddy," says he, "you can kid with me
And the whole damned Field Artilleree,
But there'll be a dud where you used to be
If you kid my swasont-cans!"
American and French field artillery gun crews
camped together in a wood
The linesman at the front--
Same old job with just a couple percent more risk than usual
Using a shell-shocked tree for a telegraph pole.
bucks: "Maud" and "Mud"
There's another!
God, this pack is heavy.
Glad I pinched the extra willy,
Guess I'll need it.
And the sweater, too,
out there.
There's another!
Jesse! that was a close one.
Wonder if......good Christ! Where's Charlie?
Got him clean. God curse those Jerries!
out there.
There's another!
Well, if one has my name on it
Then the guv'ment pays ten thousand.
What's the use? I couldn't spend it.
Leastways not--
out there.
There's another.
Where'd I put that plug of Climax?
Oh, I s'pose somebody swiped it.
Gee, I never thought that Charlie...
Glad I ain't out on the wire.
This damn trench is dark--ouch! Damn it,
Wait a minute.... Hell, I'm coming,
I can't run in this equipment.
What the hell's the rush to get--
out there?
The roofs of Vaux after a few minutes of Yank barrage lifted--
In 1870 Grandpère was taken as a prisoner to Coblenz
You can see 'em in the movies,
With the sunlight on their guns,
You can read in all the papers
Of the charge that licked the Huns,
You can read of "khaki heroes"
And of "gleaming bayonet,"
But there's one thing that the writers
And the artist all forget:
That's me!
In my suit of denim blue
I am thinking--not of you--
But the places where I'd like the top to be!
On the posters in the windows,
In the monthly magazine,
Are the boys in leather leggins
Such as Pershing's never seen;
Oh, they love to paint 'em pretty,
All dressed up and fit to kiss,--
Ain't it funny there's a picture
That they always seem to miss?
Bless me soul,
Loading coal!
In my little shimmy-shirt,
Eyes and mouth full up with dirt--
(In the next war I'll be living at the Pole.)
Built for speed / and with light pack to match
Chemin-des-Dames engagement
Mule and Prairie Schooner in a country made desert by war
When we left the transport
Second thing you asked us,--
"Quand finit la guerre?"
Didn't know your lingo
You weren't hard to get,
Peace was what you wanted--
And a cigarette.
Then up in the trenches
It was just the same,
"When's it going to finish?"
Didn't seem quite game.
Then we saw you strafing,
Saw we had you wrong,
Wondered how you stood it
Four years long.
Drank your sour pinard,
Shared what smokes we had,
Got to know you better,
Found you weren't so bad,
Four years in the trenches!
(One's enough, I'll say)
How the hell'd you do it
On five sous a day?
Moving up--
He handles a big naval gun mounted on railroad cars near Soissons
In the war of 1870 he drove a team instead of a camion.
Too old to serve in the active army and so assigned to the more
An American ambulance at a poste de secours (first aid station)
Four hours off--two hours on--
And not a thing to do but think,
And watch the mud and twisted wire
And never let your peepers blink.
Two hours on--four hours off--
The dug-out's slimy as the trench;
It stinks of leather, men, and smoke,--
You wake up dopey from the stench.
Four hours off--two hours on--
Back on the same old trick again,
The same old noth'n' to do at all
From yesterday till God knows when.
On post or not it's just the same,
The waiting is what gets your goat
And makes you want to chuck the game
Or risk a trench-knife in your throat.
Two hours on--four hours off--
I s'pose our job is not so hard,--
I s'pose sometime we're going to quit--
The ghosts we leave--do they stand guard?
He's been on every front from Chateau-Thierry to the Rhine
in Paris and the provinces--
A type to match the ideal of every man who looks
No one knows where the poilu slang word "Pinard" came from,
but everyone knows what it means. It's half way between water
and red wine, with the kick mostly in the taste. It is served
as an army ration. The poilu's canteen is always full of it.
"We ain't no thin red 'eroes, Nor we aren't no blackguards too."
One of the Agent-de-ville = M.P. teams of Paris patrolling the
boulevard. They have authority over both Yank and poilu.
monastary of Pont St. Maxence]
French Colonial Types: White, black, and half-way
A Yank going on leave having a midnight cup of "vin rouge" in a
The barber shop quartette on the trip home--
(no ocean rules about noise this time).
Coming Out! dirty, tired and grinning!
Brought up  to the front by the  ration detail
This one has won three army citations
"la soupe"
Liaison dog to carry messages
Jack - a yank volunteer
Kénaro / S'aïd
Two dogs who worked together at Verdun
"mort pour la patrie"
"Pull the shades down Mary Ann"
A love song from The East--
Our own jazz band
French Colonials from Northern Africa used in shock troops
I'll be stepping wide in these russet shoes!
Leather putts beside, honest I can't lose!
Guess the guy that had 'em left 'em in a hurry!
What the hell, he's S.O.L.
I should worry.
"That's my second razor!"
"Then gimme the blades."
"Whatcha got there, Buddy?"
"Pair of tailor-mades!"
I'll be walking on air!  Yes ... they was the top's!
He won't need 'em out there - if a big one drops.
"Going to keep that sweater?"
"No, look at the dirt."
"Put that on you, Buddy,
"You'll have to read your shirt!"
If I get that leave I can use 'em to dance.
Well, I should grieve, --he had his chance.
"Nothing doing! Beat it!"
"Saw that luger first!"
"Ten francs says I want it."
"Done. I'll cure this thirst."
Brand-new russet shoes, I'll be stepping high!
Someone's got to lose, glad I ain't the guy.
If I'm going to use 'em, guess I'll have to hurry,
The next H.E. may be meant for me --
I should worry!
Marcus who helps keep the big planes in order
(Blackened teeth are an aid to health and beauty)
An ancestral pipe and a French briquette to light it with
Le Sergent Tam / Lizy-sur-Ouneq(?)
A King in his own country
The Loot is getting wabbly,
With his dinky little pack,--
He can hear the sergeant cussing
But he doesn't dare look back.
But we ain't saying nothing
Since we got the order "route,"
Too dog-dead for even wond'ring
If we'll ever hear "fall out."
My damn rifle and my helmet
Keep on getting in the way,
And my brains are numb and dopey
Try'n' to cuss and try'n' to pray.
My throat's as dry as sawdust
And my right arm's gone to sleep,
And the pack-strap on my shoulder
Cuts a slit two inches deep.
I just lift one foot and shove it
And it hits most any place,
Then I lift and shove the other
T'keep from falling on my face.
If the guide should change the cadence
I'll be damned if I could stop;
If you pushed me with a feather--
Well, I'd just curl up and drop.
And I know damn well there's stragglers
That'll ride up on a truck--
Guess if you ain't born a quitter,
You're just simply outa luck.
I suppose we'll keep on going--
Huh? The Skipper's faced about?
You don't need ... to say ... "fall out!"
Compaigne, Paris, and interior cities. This "cave" was considered
Far from Broadway--S.R.O.--Christmas 1917 at a YMCA hut
Hospital for the treatment of burns
Henri, who tends sheep with his assistant (Leroy)
She teaches us French
And Pierre picked the spuds
re-establishing their life there by the American Red Cross
The site of the home of Madam Crépin where the Red Cross set up a
Cut off from rations for three days in the wood--with one can of
tomatoes for both food and drink--
It seemed years since I had seen one,--
Years of hiking, sweat and blood,
Didn't think there was a clean one
In these miles of men and mud.
Well, I stood there, laughing, drinking,
Kidding her in bon fransay
But the things that I was thinking
Were a thousand miles away.
Sewed my stripe on like a mother,
Gee! She was a pretty kid....
But I left her like a brother,--
Shake her hand was all I did.
Then I says: "Vous, all right, cherry--"
And my throat stuck, and it hurt....
And I showed her what I carry
In the pocket of my shirt.
Neat but not gaudy
As we come home--on the transport.
(President Wilson, center, reads, other figures labelled as)
We stood up and we didn't say a word,
It felt just like when you have dropped your pack
After a hike, and straightened out your back
And seem just twice as light as any bird.
We stood up straight and, God! but it was good!
When you have crouched like that for months, to stand
Straight up and look right out toward No-Man's-Land
And feel the way you never thought you could.
We saw the trenches on the other side
And Jerry, too, not making any fuss,
But prob'ly stupid-happy, just like us.
Nobody shot and no one tried to hide.
If you had listened then I guess you'd heard
A sort of sigh from everybody there,
But all we did was stand and stare and stare,
Just stare and stand and never say a word.