I believe that Brand wrote most of that, based on an elaboration by John Jacob Niles of a fragmentary USN text of 1918.

Meanwhile, lest we forget: a pome.

COOTIES

(Written in the village graveyard)

by J. L. M.

The bugler blows a blast of parting day:
The troopers wend their way to Barracks D,
Each one upon his bunk the night to stay,
And leave my bunk to cooties and to me.

Full many a coot of mottled gray serene,
My dark and dusty O.D. blankets bear:
Full many a cootie born to blush unseen
And waste a lifetime crawling through my hair.

The strongest gasoline, the hottest shower,
And all that doctors, all that wealth e'er gave,
Are vanquished in the coot's victorious hour:
You cannot lead a cootie to its grave.

Can O.D. shirt or Red Cross knitted sock
Cast out the breeding cooties in a breath?
The cooties who hang on, and sneer, and mock,
Will challenge e'en the dull, cold ear of death.

(The author appears to have been Second Lieutenant James L. McCann, Second Corps Aeronautical School, Chatillon; later 104th U.S. Aero Squadron; text, punctuation very slightly corrected.)