Call Us What We Carry Read Online Free PDF

Company C of the 506th Engineer Battalion, which built roads, fortifications & conducted other manual labor that was essential to the army. Around 160,000 African American soldiers served as Services of Supply troops in France, enabling the critical supply & movement of white combat troops.
    Plummer dutifully kept a diary throughout the war. His background as a clerk is exemplified by his preciseunderstanding of grammar (he often crosses out or corrects himself, as if aware that someone else will be reading his work), impeccable handwriting & clear-cut descriptions of his experiences. Plummer’s journal, housed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, has been fully transcribed & digitized by the Smithsonian Transcription Center.
    After the war, Plummer returned to Washington, DC, & practiced medicine in the District of Columbia for over forty years. ‡‡

    ‡‡ See caption on this page

    To view as reflowable text, see this page
    The prose portions are his original diary entries, while the verses are my own creation, where I imagine new writings. In writing in Corporal Plummer’s voice, I wanted to do so in a form that embodied his concise language. The lined papers used as a journal background in this pieceare scans of blank pages in Plummer’s original diaries. The haiku was particularly fitting—many of Plummer’s entries are one to three sentences, & the haiku is three lines, their five-seven-five syllable pattern demanding an economic use of language.

WAR: WHAT, IS IT GOOD?
    .-- .- .-. / .-- .... .- - / .. ... / .. - / --. --- --- -..
    How much toilet paper,
    Hand sanitizer,
    Were we allowed?
    In battle, everything,
    Even hope, is rare & rationed,
    Creating competitors from comrades,
    Making monsters of men.
    This mask is our medal of honor.
    It has our war written all over it.
----
    * * *
    The 1918 influenza killed 50 million people (though some scholars suggest it could be 100 million), far more than those killed in World War I. The death toll of the influenza was intrinsically tied to warfare. The movement of large numbers of troops across the continents contributed to the spread of the virus; meanwhile millions of noncombatants were uprooted from their homes. The influenza was particularly devastating to Indigenous communities, which had already barely survived ethniccleansing campaigns. No matter what we’re told, violence is never little.
----
    * * *
    War, like a whale, is all consuming—
    Everything fits into its mesh mouth.
    Like a whale, a virus can wolf
    Down the globe whole.
    The bullet is a beast, as are we.
    Our invisible battles
    Are the hardest ones to win.
----
    * * *
    The first step in warfare & pandemics is the same:
    Isolation, to rupture the channels of communication of virus/violence.
    The British pioneered cable cutting during WWI, using the CS Alert to dredge Germany’s underwater telegraph cables. Wartime censorship also slashed communication & truth-telling; the US Sedition Act of 1918 outlawed speech or expression that damaged the country’s image or war effort. Fearing punishment, newspapers minimized the threat of the virus, often refusing to print doctors’ letters warning the public not to gather or travel. Thiscensorship & misinformation only contributed to the further communication of influenza across the country & globe. Fire barrel of the throat. Words, too, are a type of combat, for we always become what we refuse to say.
----
    * * *
    After we fight
    Someone we love,
    We offer a question:
    Are we okay?
    Are we good?
    The First World War was once called “Great,”
    So named “The War to End All Wars.”
    Ha.
    What is called “great”
    Is often grievous & gruesome,
    But what is good is worth our words.
    Good trouble.
    Good fight.
    Good will.
    Good people.
    To be good is to be larger than war.
    It is to be more than great.
----
    * * *
    The body is a walking
    Chaos of meat & bones.
    Deaths & injuries in armed conflicts
    Are called casualties,