A W.W. I Poem by Gertrude Stein

When you stop to think of patriotic poetry, Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) is not one of the word-smiths whose name comes to mind. Yet she, too, applied her talents to the genre after having labored many moons as an ambulance driver in France on behalf of the American Fund for the French Wounded. She had joined this group in 1916 and in 1922 was awarded the Medaille de la Reconnaissance Française for all her good work. This poem, in praise of the U.S. Army, appeared in a 1918 issue of VANITY FAIR.