In the Front-Line Desks Lieut. Elmer Franklin Powell
in Adventure Magazine
Permission to reproduce in this book
I TRIED to be a doughboy, but they said my feet were flat
And I’d surely never stand the awful strain.
No chance to even argue that I’d like to bet my hat
I could out walk any tar-heel in the train.
“Awful sorry, but it’s useless,” was the doctor’s mournful wail.
“Your eyesight quite unfits you for the guns.”
Uselessly I tried to tell him that at dropping leaden hail
I could surely decimate a pack of Huns.
Then I hoped for aviation, for my nerve is still in place,
But there wasn’t even half a chance for that.
A stocky young lieutenant said, “You’ll never hold the pace,
For you’ve got a jumpy eyebrow.” Think o’ that!
So they went and made me captain in the Quartermaster Corps,
Where I juggle lists of beans the livelong day.
Trying hard to grin and bear it as the boys march off to war
While I sit and figure up their blasted pay.