The nature of trench warfare and life in the trenches dealing with experiences of Allied and German soldiers…
The nature of trench warfare and life in the trenches dealing with experiences of both allied and German soldiers.…
We already fought a couple of battles here at the Western Front. In most of those battles, both sides used trench warfare, in which soldiers hide inside deep trenches. These trenches were dug in rows with sandbags lined at the top – side facing the “no-man’s land”. No-man’s land was basically where all the battle happens. The countryside mire was filled with landmines, covered with barbed wires on the surface. Several of my surviving comrades from the previous battle, the Somme, were shell-shocked, probably from the disaster. I still couldn’t forget the ‘Blood Bath’ that happened there. Trench life has been far worse than the life at camp 2 years ago. There was still the awfully wet mud surrounding and the cold air filled our lungs. Our boots were always wet, and we were given whale oil to cover our feet every day. Some people refuse or forget to do it, thus they developed trench foot. It’s a condition where one’s feet are rotting, and more often than not, accompanied by swelling and a painful infection. The trenches were filled with lice and rats which caused diseases, when they sneaked around the supplies. I managed to avoid the lice because I kept the silk you gave, around my torso as an undershirt. Anyways, a few days before the battle, General Arthur Currie made thorough plans for the attack. The planes scouted the enemy front lines and the terrain, and spotted the snipers and machine gun positions. We built a…
Fighting in this war is not what I thought it was going to be like. The trenches where fellow soldiers and I are located smell horrid. Bodies are rotting around us and the thick scent of them are filling the already unclean air. It feels like pain in my nose as I am writing this. I am watching men get killed left and right. Today the Germans used tons of lethal chlorine gas on us. We were up against it, it was terrible. We had to urinate on handkerchiefs to prevent the gas from filling our lungs and killing us. I survived somehow, but watching some of my comrades fail to survive really wasn’t bonzer.…
Hello Mother and Father how are you doing? I haven’t been doing too well in the trenches. As you know I have been assisting the French in the trenches for nearly two years. The trenches are horrendous; I never thought I would be more petrified at the horrific conditions than the actual war. Every day we face rats, hundreds of millions of rats, scurrying through the trenches. Since we don’t have a proper waste disposal system, the rats eat the trash that lay on the floor and the soldiers who have died in combat. It’s a gruesome sight, watching a fallen solder’s surrounded by flies and the rats consume the decaying corpses. Trench foot is almost just as bad, a couple of my closest friends have died from it. They told us that we developed trench foot from standing…
Trenches were built to protect yourself from the enemy(s). Trenches were generally around two meters deep and two meters wide. There was three rows. The first row was called the frontline trench. The frontline was the closest to no mans land (the land controlled by neither side of a war), it was also the most dangerous because that was were most of the fighting went on. The second row was called the support trench. It was back-up to the frontline, just in case the enemy got passed. The third and last row was called the reserves. This is were they kept all the supplies and equipment. Also there was communication tunnels connecting the trenches, they were used to transport supplies and messages to the other trenches. Trenches were very unhealthy. Lice, rats and all sorts of vermin occupied the trenches. There was little to no running water, the bathrooms consisted of a bucket in the trench. Also there was dead bodies covering all of the land. Worst of all, there was rats. They would eat dead bodies, or eat out the eyes and live in the bodies of the dead. Rats would nibble the living while they slept or when they were wounded. The other horrible parasite was lice. Lice is hard to get rid of…
Soon after, the French did the same and dug trenches to take cover from German fire. Soldiers lived in the trenches for years on end and life was not easy. Mud in the trenches could reach over two feet deep and sometimes even drowned wounded men. The mud also caused trench foot, an infection caused by prolonged exposure to cold, wet and unsanitary conditions that sometimes led to amputation. The trenches were dug in a zigzag pattern to keep any sort of shell fire or explosions from spreading too far down the line, minimizing injury and or loss of life. Trenches were doug in sets of three main lines with sets of communication lines connecting them. The trench line furthest from the front was used for reserve troops. The next line was for travel and is where the majority of combat happened. The trench line closest to the front was referred to as the “Stand to”. This “Stand to” trench line was mostly used at sunrise and sunset. Many trenches started out as simply dirt, but as time went by soldiers had to adapt to making them their short term home. Trenches evolved with wooden walls, medical quarters, office quarters, some including beds, furniture, and even some electric amenities. Even with these WWI was a long and terrible war with extreme losses of life. Soldiers lived in the trenches of Europe for years on end and life wasn’t easy for any of them. They…
The military life has not treated me well at all, and all of the propaganda about the Germans back home riled me up for a job that I would have never expected. The living conditions here are horrid, and every day I question how I am still living and have enough power left in my body to write this letter. Every day, my friends in my platoon die from either the awful conditions, or they are blown to fractions from enemy shrapnel. Besides the numerous dead bodies, there are large, repulsive rats that feed on the dead bodies of my friends. Since they are so numerous, they’ve gotten bold enough to start stealing our bread.…
Based on the email written “American Soldier Letter,” the unnamed soldier is a skeptical and exhausted individual who shows his feelings towards his experiences in Iraq. His attitudes toward his services are shown through his tone in the letter, the sarcastic examples of language to create a sense of humor, and syntax/appeals given to the readers by the speaker.…
We send our gratitude for your soldiers protecting us but we wish to please separate from Great Britain. We, the people of the colonies shall wish you dearly but it is time for us to become our own nation. Please DO NOT be offended by the following Statements.…
Imagine yourself in a muddy trench, being about eight to ten feet deep down. There are enemies firing guns overhead up top of the trench flying over it and the stench in the trench is horrible. There are many bodies piled around that have died and sometimes giant rats would walk about. Disease runs rampant and many people die due to the hard conditions. That’s a small part of what it was probably like to be fighting in the trenches back in World War One.…
The powerful emotions triggered through watching this film can be acknowledged without question. What I found the most interesting was the use of real news footage from that time period that aired on major news networks, swaying people’s opinions about our justification for being in Vietnam. Being able to view that gave me a 1st hand look into soldiers’ opinions of the war as well as protests and how they differed then. The actors reading the leaders with pure emotion and feeling in order to accurately portray how much these soldiers put into these letters was remarkable because I felt as though I was experiencing that time period as if it were real and the soldiers were scrambling to write as I watched on. The stories they depicted throughout their words definitely provided for a flurry of reactions. I wanted to be happy for those men honored for combat, living through the horrors of hell, and seeing the relief on their faces when being honorably discharged and sent home. I was equally and oppositely somber, however, for those men’s lives stolen in combat, for those permanently crippled and bitter, to hear of the unspeakable horrors awaiting prisoners of war, as well as letters from optimistic soldiers killed in action shortly after. Another thing I found effectively executed by this film was the specific numbers given. They showed the variation in the number of soldiers deployed to Vietnam over the course of the war, as well as the rising KIA numbers and wounded in combat. A gruesome part of this war as well was the thick jungle that the soldiers had to navigate through blindly until ambushed by the Vietcong, and I thought the film did an excellent job of revealing that to the public. One of the most powerful moments of the film was when a soldier, grieving over his superior officer exclaimed that “he’ll be given a silver star, and somehow that is supposed to suffice for his life being…
My Dearest Mother, I know you have been worrying about me, for I have been worrying about you as well. Before I left I promised to write you about my first battle on the Western Front. My experience here has been a real eye-opener, the things I have saw, heard, touched, taste, and felt are revolting and painful. My first day in the battle was terrifying, being in the trenches while eggs were being thrown, land creepers were shooting as us from all directions, blind pigs were being fired at us from left and right, and the suicide squad after us. After being in the trenches day after day having the same thing happen over and over again you build a thick skin.…
“Letter to My Son,” written by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2015, was in all essentiality advice. The article begins with the author describing his own sadness at the distance between a country built on a dream, and the sobering reality he saw. He continues on to talk about how his body, his son’s body, and the bodies of many of their peers around them, are very often going to be at the mercy of people around them. Coates then speaks of escaping the danger of having his own body at the mercy of another, and his desire to rescue himself through “a clash with the streets.” Cue a change of tone in the letter as it moves on to speak of the author’s “Mecca”. Which in this case means a holy city, or a place of light and perfection. For Coates, this place…
My conversation with my mother helped me understand how and why this young woman insulted Portugal and other countries before. She helped me realize how French people are... And it made me feel better about myself... If you know me, you'll know that I do love to complain, but imagine it twice as much. My mum actually laughed when she told me that she heard them complain about the economy, the way of living... In France, it's free to give birth, you have help from the government after you have more than 2 kids living under your roof, you have everything handed to you. It's insane how much they have while we are in America were everything is costly. In California, to have surgery you pay more than $1,000, in France, it's barely anything. And…