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Show A VOLUNTEER'S SENTIMENTS. The following original poem was sent home to his parents by an Iron County volunteer as expressing the feelings of the volunteers in the army of their treatment as compared with 1 that accorded the drafted men. It is herewith reproduced for what it is worth, without argument as to whether wheth-er or not the sentiment is in any measure justified: Why didn't I want to be drafted, And led to the train by a band, Or out on a claim for exemption Oh, why did I hold up my hand? Why didn't I wait for the banquet? Why didn't I want to be cheered? For the drafted men get the credit, While I merely volunteered. I And nobody gave me a banquit, Nobody said a kind word j The puff of the engine, the grind of the wheel, 1 Was all the good-bye I heard. ( Then off to the training camp hustled To be drilled for the next half year, j And in the shuffle forgotten ' For I'm only n volunteer! And perhaps some day in the future, When a little boy sits on my knee And asks what I did In the great war, And his little eyes look up at me, I will have to look back into those eyes That at me so trustingly peer, And confess that I wasn't drafted That I was only a volunteer. |