Treat 'em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser KillerLardner, Ring
General
Treat 'em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer
Lardner, Ring
American wit and humor; World War, 1914-1918 -- Humor
But listen Al the news about going to Chi isn't the only peace of good
news I got today because I also found out that this bird that Shorty
called Tom the Trigger isn't no gun man at all and this here Nick the
Blade won't do nothing to me because he is scared of the officers so I
won't have to lay awake no more nights worring but I didn't find it out
till today and here is how it come off.
This A.M. I went to sleep right at breakfast and couldn't keep
my eyes open so Corporal Daly come up to me afterwards and asked me
what was the matter so I told him I was to nervous to sleep nights on
acct. of a crazy man bunking next to me and any minute he might take a
notion and shoot me full of holes. I didn't say nothing about Nick the
Blade on the other side of me because he was standing where he could
hear us. So Corporal Daly asked me who I was talking about and I told
him and he laughed and says that if I waited for Castle which is this
other bird's name to start shooting I would probably die of old age or
something because he is one of these objecters that don't beleive in war
and he told them about it the first day we got here and says he objected
to being a soldier. So Capt. Nash asked him if he would object to
unloading a few cars of coal and that is what he has been doing up and
till last Friday and then he begun objecting to a shovel and he says he
would like to join the rest of us and see what it was like and maybe he
would loose his objections. So now they are giveing him a week to make
up his mind what he is going to do and he is talking it over all the
while with the Lord and if the Lord tells him its O.K. to kill people
why well and good but he won't practice on us because in the first place
he hasn't no gun and if he had one he wouldn't know if it was to shoot
with or stir your coffee.
So afterwards I told Shorty Lahey he had made a mistake about Castle
and he says "All right and if he is a objecter it is up to us to talk
him out of it." So after supper tonight Castle was seting right near me
in the recreation room and Shorty come up to him and says "Well Castle
haven't you been able to get that party on the wire yet" so Castle asked
him what he meant and he says he heard Castle was waiting for a message
from somewheres telling him if he should be a soldier or not so Castle
didn't answer and begun to read. So Shorty says "You ain't the only one
that objects to war but we got to make the world safe for Democrats and
you shouldn't ought to object to getting your head blowed off in a good
cause." So Castle spoke up and said he didn't object to getting killed
but what he objected to was killing other people. So Shorty says "Well
then all you got to do is stick along side of me in the trenches and
when you get orders to go over the top you can slip me your gun and
bayonet and I will see that they don't nobody sneak off with them
dureing your absents." So then Castle got up and walked out on us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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