TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SHARP COUNTY RECORD FEBRUARY 15, 1918 P. 4
Editor Record:
Please allow me to space in your good paper to tell a few things about Uncle Sam’s army.
I have been here more than two months and have been quarantined all the time, still we have some amusements. We arise at 5 o’clock in the morning. At 6:15 we stand reveille, then mess, or breakfast. At 7:30 we are ready for drill or fatigue duty. It is drill until 11:30, then mail call. At 12 it is mess again. We drill again from 1 until 5, then it is retreat after retreat until mess time again, then mail call. At 9:30 the lights are out and every one is in bed for the night’s rest, except the guards. Since some of us have been transferred we do no drilling. It is fatigue duty one day and guard the next.
Some of the boys have been going away without proper authority, but I think they are under control now. Two boys ran off and stayed seven or eight days, then came back. Then we had court, and believe me, it was carried out in military style, too. Charges were preferred against the boys for being absent without leave. There were six attorneys, three of them defending the boys, but the evidence was so strong that the twelve jurors rendered a verdict that the boys were guilty of disobedience in the first degree. The penalty was severe, and here it is: thirty-nine licks with a razor strop and one minute under ice cold water bath with a hose and thirty pounds of pressure. This was the funniest thing I have seen during my stay here.
After these boys left twelve guards were placed on duty, with rifles and pointed steel, to keep the rest inside, and now the boys are doing all kinds of extra duty, and the captain declares that when quarantine is raised these two boys will get no passes to town. However, the two seem to be satisfied, and join the rest in singing the familiar songs that all the boys here sing:
It takes a long time to whip the
kaiser –
It takes a long time, ‘tis true,
It takes a long time to whip the
kaiser,
and the allies know it, too.
Good bye little Belgium, France
and England too –
It takes a long, long time to whip
the kaiser,
It takes the Red, White and Blue.
Floyd M. Nichols
Camp Pike, Ark.
NOTES: Floyd Milton Nichols was born in 1892 and died in 1975. He is buried in the Lawrence Memorial Park in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD
Editor Record:
Please allow me to space in your good paper to tell a few things about Uncle Sam’s army.
I have been here more than two months and have been quarantined all the time, still we have some amusements. We arise at 5 o’clock in the morning. At 6:15 we stand reveille, then mess, or breakfast. At 7:30 we are ready for drill or fatigue duty. It is drill until 11:30, then mail call. At 12 it is mess again. We drill again from 1 until 5, then it is retreat after retreat until mess time again, then mail call. At 9:30 the lights are out and every one is in bed for the night’s rest, except the guards. Since some of us have been transferred we do no drilling. It is fatigue duty one day and guard the next.
Some of the boys have been going away without proper authority, but I think they are under control now. Two boys ran off and stayed seven or eight days, then came back. Then we had court, and believe me, it was carried out in military style, too. Charges were preferred against the boys for being absent without leave. There were six attorneys, three of them defending the boys, but the evidence was so strong that the twelve jurors rendered a verdict that the boys were guilty of disobedience in the first degree. The penalty was severe, and here it is: thirty-nine licks with a razor strop and one minute under ice cold water bath with a hose and thirty pounds of pressure. This was the funniest thing I have seen during my stay here.
After these boys left twelve guards were placed on duty, with rifles and pointed steel, to keep the rest inside, and now the boys are doing all kinds of extra duty, and the captain declares that when quarantine is raised these two boys will get no passes to town. However, the two seem to be satisfied, and join the rest in singing the familiar songs that all the boys here sing:
It takes a long time to whip the
kaiser –
It takes a long time, ‘tis true,
It takes a long time to whip the
kaiser,
and the allies know it, too.
Good bye little Belgium, France
and England too –
It takes a long, long time to whip
the kaiser,
It takes the Red, White and Blue.
Floyd M. Nichols
Camp Pike, Ark.
NOTES: Floyd Milton Nichols was born in 1892 and died in 1975. He is buried in the Lawrence Memorial Park in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD