"I've served my time in Hell"

[Jonathan Lighter]

This is the 1917 text of the poem, with the reference to "sunny France" added. The other alterations, if I recall correctly, are trivial.

Critics such as myself rate "Our Hitch in Hell" as Camp's finest poetic effusion.

By far.

I've already searched this site for slang, BTW.

A variation of the line was widely publicized as the epitaph of a Marine killed on Guadalcanal as,

"When he gets to Heaven,
To St. Peter he will tell,
One more Marine reporting, Sir,
I've served my time in Hell."

JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: "I've served my time in Hell"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 7 May 2005 06:06:24 -0700, Jonathan Lighter
wrote:

>I know the name of the author of this line, but can't bring it to mind.
>Somewhere in the house I have a Xerox of the original publication and
>will search for it today.
>
>As I recall, "Our Hitch in Hell" is the name of the poem, written on
>the Mexican Border in 1916. The 3rd Wyoming Infantry Regiment (National
>Guard) is mentioned.

There may be multiple claims of authorship for this one. According to
this site, it was written by Albert P. Schoo:

http://www.thetroubleshooters.com/history089.html

But this site says it was by F. B. Camp:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~txbell/nannie12.htm

The poem appears in the (Elyria, Ohio) _Evening Telegram_ of Sep. 20,
1917, attributed to F. B. Camp. In the _Clearfield (Pa.) Progress_ of
Dec. 10, 1917, the attribution is simply "Border Experiences, 1916."


--Ben Zimmer


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