1/26/18
Called for first time for guard duty.
Bright moonlight
Call this a poem.
Teach us how to walk from war
Like we ever could.
6/2/18
There was this provision: “The walking of white soldiers with colored women or colored soldiers with white women within the limits of this camp is strictly prohibited.”
Whites don’t love mixing,
Race that launched a thousand whips.
Watch us bleed the night.
9/30/18
Epidemic of Spanish Influenza has been raging. We now have 4 men in hospital with it and 7 men are said to have died in one night of it.
We hear men coughing
Then the stiff, loaded silence
Of coughing no more.
God, the symmetry.
Coughin’ into their coffins.
Life takes breath away.
11/3/18
The dawn brushed back a curtain that concealed in its folds a place that really seemed deserving of the name term “God-forsaken.”
In this one-chance life,
Nothing is ever promised,
Not even the land.
We might stay a while
Cuz they don’ kill us here bad
As they do back home.
12/1918
Friction between the races. Though the colored troops are not equipped with guns, according to all reports, they behaved themselves most bravely and pluckily against the Marines. It seems that the trouble started in a cafe when a Marine Sgt made some remark which displeased the colored “boys” there and resulted in the Sergeant’s receiving a severe trouncing.
The Sgt then really informed his men and incited a riot. The Marines, it seems, began to promiscuously beat up every soldier of color who that happened to be alone and the colored boy reciprocated. One colored soldier of Co. “A” 506, stabbed by a bayonet in the affray, died at the Camp Hospital about half an hour later. It was reported that 2 or 3 white soldiers were killed, and it is known that there are 3 or 4 white fellows in the hospital with “bad heads,” as Wilbur Halliburton put it. The fracas caused quite a stir.
We are a riot,
Our black leaves some things ink-bright.
Watch us bleed just right.
So, if we must die,
Let it be as nothing less
Than what we are were.
1/4/19
Colder and extremely windy. Post up delinquency records in forenoon. Very busy these days, in fact, for last 5 or 6 mos. Many rumors about returning home ever since armistice was signed.
Our lives end from flu—
One must ask: Have we really
Won this war at all.
1/5/19
There comes to mind in the way of a severe reprimand, this little verse:
“Count that day lost
Whose low descending sun
Views from thy hands
No worthy action done.”
However, this day was not lost, in any sense of the word.
Action is joining
The weaponry of our hands.
Ready, aim higher.
1/20/19
Much colder. Epidemic. said to be the “Flu” raising sand with Co. “A”. Quite a number are sent to the Hospital.
Gulps of our lives,
Gargling from our treasured chests,
Going, going, gone.
Dying is blinding;
It rips from our eyes, leaves them
Stars that won’t stare back.
1/21/19
Quite a cold day; in fact, one of the coldest that I have witnessed in France Co “A” affected more by the Epidemic, is placed under quarantine and a marine guard posted around barracks.
Atlas, too, carried.
At last, something to die for.
Alas, we die fast.
1/22/19
Go to Headquarters (Bn) to work forenoons owing to Headquarters force being under quarantine.
They will keep sleeping,
Hard heads laid for good.
Death is no brief dream.
1/23/19
More than 60 men of Company “A” are in the Camp Hospital with the new malady. Cold. Co. “D” also placed under quarantine.
All we’ve wanted, fled.
Alive: all we want to be,
All we cannot stay.
1/24/19
Still cold, and the epidemic still spreading, especially in Company “A”. Our company dons “Flu” masks as a preventive measure.
This brown-boned garden,
Limp stalks graved in rows.
Man, we feed this earth.
1/26/19
To date there are 116 men of Co. “A” in Hosp., 2 of whom, it is reported, died early this morning. A little snow today, not much.
Co. America,
Call us “All We Have Died For.”
Lord knows it’s enough.
1/27/19
Somewhat warmer. Our company is placed under quarantine and not allowed out of quarters except for duty. 3 or 4 men are found with high fevers.
Remembering what
We’ve lived is its own tall fight.
Memory’s a mess.
1/28/18/19
Headquarters force having returned, I am relieved from duty at Bn. Hq.
When it’s listened to,
Memory’s a message in
Our baottled-bodies.
Oops, got the year wrong.
This year is all wrong, all long.
Time takes us on.
1/29/19
“Flu” masks are eliminated, quarantine measures affecting this
company not very strict.
Armistice has come,
The battle not done:
Race riots will smoke our streets,
Our award for prevailing.
Fine is just not free.
We return fighting
If return we do.
This flag call us last.
6/5/19
Honorably discharged. / Buy ticket for Washington, D.C., arriving / there early the / morning of the 6th.
6/6/19
Some have decided to leave,
We have decided to live,
Breathing a warred skin.
Life leaves us gasping.
Ships carry us to U.S.
Our wrists still shackled.
We drop our guns, not our grief.
We make home worth fighting for.