Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, when on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 World War I ended. If ever there was a brutal, stupid war, it had to be the blood and carnage of World War I. But that's a subject for another forum.

"Pershing at the Front," by Arthur Guiterman is not an anti-war poem. It's just a light-hearted piece that pokes fun at military protocol. So, the following is an article I wrote a few years ago for Helium.com:

Arthur Guiterman was a prominent American poet who lived from 1871 to 1943. Best known for his humorous poems, he was also an author and magazine editor. He was also one of the founders of the Poetry Society of America.

This article highlights Guiterman’s World War I comic poem and spoof of General Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces and is one of my favorite humorous poems of all times. I can honestly say that poetry like Guiterman’s is what got me interested in poetry and literature in high school. (For a complete copy of the poem, please see http://holyjoe.net/poetry/guiter8.htm.)

World War I was not a funny war

“Pershing at the Front” is somewhat of a rarity. Not many pieces of humorous literature, poetry or otherwise, have come out of the World War I period. Of course, World War I was no laughing matter. Years of stalemated trench warfare made life for the common soldier a muddy, vermin infested hell interspersed with death and terror. Classics like Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front, Hemmingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” as well as poems like “In Flanders Fields” by McCrae set the somber and sad tone for this dismal war.

Straying from that mold, Guiterman’s poem takes a good-natured jab at the Army brass touring these miserable conditions. In this poem, General Pershing arrives at the front “in a new tin hat” and is fussed over and escorted by an entourage of hilarious toadies.

Pershing's entourage

Let’s look at the first verse, which sets the tone and them for this gem:

The General came in a new tin hat

To the shell-torn front where the war was at;

With a faithful Aide at his good right hand

He made his way toward No Man’s Land,

And a tough Top Sergeant there they found,

And a Captain, too, to show them round.

So here we have Black Jack Pershing going to the “shell-torn front where the war was at.” (Notice the lyrical cadence of this piece. It has an almost limerick quality that adds to its gusto and enjoyment.) Every general has at least one aide de camp, and naturally he needs to seek out an experienced sergeant. The captain is there in case the sergeant commits some error in protocol and also so that General and his aide don’t have to address the sergeant, a lowly enlisted man, directly. It’s a matter of protocol designed to make everyone completely comfortable.

In the next verse we see the entourage groping carefully “their heads bent low,” and the sergeant, who is their guide, whispers their location “Third-line trench!” So they are at the third trench back from No Man’s land, and the sergeant is whispering. One assumes that their voices should not be raised because of enemy snipers or other dangers that lurk from across No Man’s land. The word is whispered up the chain of command, and Black Jack repeats it, also in a whisper – and not in French – “Yes I see it” (Rumor had it that General Pershing didn’t care for his French hosts, so it is understandable that he would not speak in French.)

The Third Line Trench

Let’s rejoin our heroes as they creep closer and closer to the guns of the sinister Hun:

Threading the ditch, their heads bent low,

Toward the lines of the watchful foe

They came through the murk and the powder stench

Till the Sergeant whispered, “Third-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “Third-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “Third-line trench!”

And Pershing answered- not in French-

“Yes, I see it. Third-line trench.”

Anyone who has ever laughed at the sometimes silly pretentiousness of military protocol will really appreciate the way the poet satirizes the passing the word up the chain to the General. After all, these men are standing right next to each other, and the General, not deaf, probably heard the sergeant clearly. But protocol demands that the General remain silent until the word is communicated formally through his aide.

Let us continue to the next stanza, when the group arrives to the Second-line trench, ever closer to what the group perceives as dangerous enemy territory.

Getting closer to the front lines

Again they marched with wary tread,

Following on where the Sergeant led

Through the wet and the muck as well,

Till they came to another parallel.

They halted there in the mud and drench,

And the Sergeant whispered, “Second-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “Second-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “Second-line trench!”

And Pershing nodded: “Second-line trench!”

The foregoing verse is more a repetition of the one before. The poet is apparently enjoying describing this scene as this group marches “with a wary tread.” Again the word is whispered up the chain of command. Note the poet’s humorous and continuous rhyming of trench with drench and stench. Some words are simply funny, like “turkey” and “chicken.” After reading this poem, I have added trench to that lexicon.

First line trench and the punchline

Next our intrepid crew closes in on the First-line trench “well camouflaged from planes and Zeps (German dirigibles).” Up here at the front we have soldiers standing on the firing steps and a major sitting “on a wooden bench” (there’s that rhyme again!). So there is not much going on at the front today, apparently. Remember, also, that our group stealthily crept two trench lines back with their heads down, and they were whispering. Why is the major sitting and why aren’t the soldiers crouching?

Yet on they went through mire like pitch

Till they came to a fine and spacious ditch

Well camouflaged from planes and Zeps

Where soldiers stood on firing steps

And a Major sat on a wooden bench;

And the Sergeant whispered, “First-line trench!”

And the Captain whispered, “First-line trench!”

And the Aide repeated, “First-line trench!”

And Pershing whispered, “Yes, I see.

How far off is the enemy?”

And the faithful Aide he asked, asked he,

“How far off is the enemy?”

And the Captain breathed in a softer key,

“How far off is the enemy?”

Now General Pershing becomes curious and wants to know how “How far off is the enemy?” The beauty of this stanza is that now we have the word going down the chain of command from the General to the aide to the Captain (“he asked, asked he” – a great conformance to both cadence and humor) to the sergeant. This is one of the funniest stanzas of the poem because of this reverse in the direction of the dialog. Also our group has somehow been molded into a zany quartet who never speak unless it is in tandem. At this point, the poem ends in what turns out to be a rather extended joke and its anticipated punch line as the final dialog virtually yo-yos up and down and once again back up the chain from the General to the sergeant and back again to the General:

The silence lay in heaps and piles

And the Sergeant whispered, “Just three miles.”

And the Captain whispered, “Just three miles.”

And the Aide repeated, “Just three miles.”

“Just three miles!” the General swore,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

And the faithful Aide the message bore,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

And the Captain said in a gentle roar,

“What in the heck are we whispering for?”

“Whispering for?” the echo rolled;

And the Sergeant whispered, “I have a cold.”

So as a teenager in English Literature having to suffer through Lord Byron and Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Pershing at the Front” was like a breath of fresh air. It was the first poem I ever read that I understood (and laughed at) every word.