Only a Volunteer
Wm. F. Santhuff
Med. Dept. 4th Field Artillery
Camp Shelby
Hattiesburg, Mississippi Written circa 1917 or 1918
- Why didn’t I wait to be drafted,
And be led to the train by a band;
And put in a claim for exemption,
Oh! Why did I hold up my hand?
Why didn’t I wait for the banquets?
Why didn’t I wait to be cheered?
For the drafted me get all the credits,
While I merely volunteered.
- And nobody gave us a banquet,
Nobody said a kind word;
The puff of the engine; the grind of the wheels
Was all the good-by that I heard.
Then off to the training camps hustled,
To be trained for the next half-year;
And in the shuffle forgotten,
I was only a volunteer.
- And perhaps sometime in the future;
When my little boy sits on my knee;
And asks what I did in the great war,
As his little eyes look up at me.
I will have to look back into those eyes;
That at me s trustingly peer;
And tell him that I wasn’t drafted,
That I was only a volunteer.
