The afternoon sun shined down Ernest's back as he stood on his toes to get a look over the trench wall. All of the men had been warned not to look over, despite the natural inclination to do so. Even when there was no attack at the moment, a random sniper shot could bring death to a soldier on his first day of service. “Johnson!” Ernest quickly lowered back down into the trench. He turned to the sergeant behind him. “Do you want to get killed Private?” The sergeant barked. “No sir!” Ernest hastily replied. He crouched back down into the trench as the sergeant left him. He looked down the trench. To his left were several more soldiers, some sleeping, waiting to be awoken by the sounds of gunfire, others crouched down uncomfortably, waiting for orders. To his right, the soldiers currently on pumping duty worked hard to keep the trench water free. It was hardly working though, as the floor of the trench was almost completely mud, with a few solid patches. He dozed off for a second staring down the trench, then looked away. If he hadn't become used to the smell of the trench, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything. The distant odor of poisonous gas from the night before, the smell of rotting sandbags and stagnant mud, the smell of dirty clothes that hadn't been cleaned in months, and a scent of food reminiscing from breakfast all combined to make the worst odor possible. Soldiers new to the trenches were traumatized by it. He turned to the soldier next to him. “I wish something would happen just to get this over with,” Ernest said. “Did you see anything when you looked up?” The soldier queried. “The fog was too thick, it might of cleared up by now though.” he replied. “I will check,” the soldier whispered as he looked around ...
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...mbed on the fire-step. After about an hour of watching for motion, his tired body began to slump. He tried to keep himself awake, but couldn't resist the urges, and fell asleep.
He was soon awakened to the sight of the glaring sergeant. No one had to say a word, he knew what was coming as he was led towards a empty area behind the trenches. “Sorry private, just following orders.” The sergeant declared as Ernest was tied firmly to a lonely tree. He couldn't help but think of all the other soldiers who had died by the hands of their own leaders on this very spot. Three soldiers stood by, ordered to shoot him. He held his breath, waiting. Shots rang out as his body slumped on the rope. A pool of blood quickly gathered at his feet as a soldier untied him and buried him in a shallow grave. His blood slowly seeped into the ground as the soldiers returned to their posts.
This story brings back some harsh truths about warfare, and explains why so many naïve young men joined up, only to suffer deaths well before their time.
In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.
Boom, Bang, Crack! The sounds of muskets being fired, its ammunition ricocheting off rocks and splintering trees are heard all around. The pungent smell of gun powder stings the nose, and its taste makes the mouth dry and sticky. The battle is still young, but blood soaked uniforms and dead or dying men can already be seen, causing the fear of death to enter many of the soldiers' minds. It is remembered that freedom is what the fight is for, so we must continue to gain independence. The battle has been going on for a short time now, although vision is already obscured from all the smoke and dust in the air. It is becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, with all of these air borne substances entering my lungs. People are still being struck by musket balls for the cries of agony rise above the many guns' explosions. This is how the battle to be known as Bunker Hill began.
" The dead all lay with their faces in the mud—or turned to the walls of the trench. This was the only way they could be told apart from the wounded. All were a uniform shade of grey." (Findley, 131)
"Reader Responses to Soldier's Home." Literature and Composition. 10 Feb.,2003. David Toth. 14 Feb., 2003. .
The narrator recounts the story of how Curt Lemon dies to support his statement that “it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.”(O’Brien pg. 68) When Curt Lemon dies, the narrator uses vivid imagery to describe the scene as “almost beautiful”: “…the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.”(O’Brien pg. 67) The imagery and personification present in the story makes it seem surreal. However, the narrator explains that when someone dies, people only see bits and pieces of the whole picture as evidenced by when the narrator reports, “you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again”(O’Brien pg. 67). Because of this, what actually happens becomes “jumbled” and influences the stories that soldiers tell, making the stories seem fake. This...
In document thirteen, we encounter a letter written by a young English soldier fighting the Germans from the woods. He starts his letter by explaining how once again he was forced to be out in the trenches for forty-eight consecutive hours. The letter, addressed to his parents, illustrates how devastating it can be for a young man out at war. When he asked for time alone they told him to take a group of men with him and after a bit of difficulty they finally let him go off on his own. While he is out on a stroll he comes across a German trench and kills an officer, he does the same thing the next day. By the end of the letter he simply defines the experience as awful.
a realistic picture of life in the trenches as he had known it and a
It is apparent that the topic of war is difficult to discuss among active duty soldiers and civilians. Often times, citizens are unable to understand the mental, physical, and physiological burden service members experience. In Phil Klay’s Ten Kliks South, the narrator struggles to cope with the idea that his artillery team has killed enemy forces. In the early stages of the story, the narrator is clearly confused. He understands that he did his part in firing off the artillery rounds, yet he cannot admit to killing the opposition. In order to suppress his guilt and uncertainty, our narrator searches for guidance and reassurance of his actions. He meets with an old gunnery sergeant and during their conversation, our narrator’s innocence
The hardships and dangers faced by American soldiers as described in the diary of Corporal Elmer Sherwood is that of daily pain, fear, horror, hunger and sadness. He talks about how it was so common for explosions to be nearby and that you always are in a worried state of mind because you don’t know if you are safe wherever you are. The trenches were supposedly a safe zone but like he described in his diary, a bomb got tossed into the very same trench he was just hiding out in and he say a few of his buddies die and get badly injured. Sherwood’s diary entry describes how it has been a very hard life being a soldier. You see so many people die and you can’t do anything about it. This was his first time watching someone die that he was actually
The writing expertise of Hemingway and Faulkner, commonly referred to as Hemingwayesque and Faulknerian, are both styles that seem to parallel off of one another. One of the best ways to understand Hemingway is to read Faulkner, and vice versa. The obscurantism of Faulkner and the attentiveness of Hemingway foster their syntax and diction, as well as their similarities and differences. Faulkner displays Gothic remnants in Absalom, Absalom!, while Hemingway creates a more minimalist prose. Hemingway and Faulkner, as seen in The Sun Also Rises and Absalom Absalom! both possess uniquely different writing styles, while being able to hold the ability to parallel off of eachother's themes and diction.
It has been a week since I have reached the front. The conditions in the trenches are deplorable and even worse than I expected them to be. My senses seem to have become numb to the ceaseless barrages of shells and artillery fire which pummel the trenches all day and night. Gas attacks have become a routine occurrence, and it is almost out of habit now that I swiftly slip on my mask and secure it for dear life whenever someone yells the dreaded cry of “GAS!” I have seen people who do not get their masks on in time or do not fasten them properly. They choke and they gag as the infernal gas excruciatingly consumes them and then they drop to the dirt, never to get up again. Witnessing this once is incentive enough for me to always keep my mask
Everyone thinks that war is terrible, but those who experience first hand know what it is truely like. Soldiers know how it feels to have someone’s blood on their hands; they know the feel of holding a gun. Let me tell you how it feels when you have to end the life of a person you don’t know. It feels like you have the weight of the world crashing down on your shoulders. I do not know why you are are reading this and if I will be dead when you do, but I want you to know that it is not a joke. Everything that I mention in this journal happened to me, a simple man from Vermont, named Robert Gray. This is what happened to me in the Civil War.
The sniper stared at his brother’s dead body. Remorse fell throughout his whole body and all of his senses numbed. As the morning sun started to glimmer through the sky, he looked up and laughed. His remorse laugher turning into tears as his senses started to work out what happen. He cursed everything, the war, himself, his memories, anything he could. The sniper question himself, ” Why? This is what war should be like and I have done this to a million others, but why does this one painfully death pains so much?”
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen compares the solders who are men to ugly, old, sick women through the simile “coughing like hags”, highlighting that the men no longer possess strength, masculinity, exceptional physical skills and potency. As a result, the soldiers’ eradicated youth and innocence portrays the dehumanising effect that the soldier’s have faced through their experiences of the war. Additionally, Owen further explores this dehumanising effect through the exaggerated movement of the soldiers in the hyperbolic metaphor “We cursed through sludge”, illustrating the ghastly and gruesome environment made up of a mix of materials such as body parts of other fellow soldiers, blood and mud. The horrendous conditions the soldiers faced for a long period of time had a drastic impact on the soldier’s mental health which in turn lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or shell-shock disorder and lost of potency. Owen also portrays that not only did the war affect a few soldiers, but all the soldiers through the repetition of “all”. Ultimately, it is conveyed that the soldiers had to unwillingly sacrifice their human attributes and was dehumanised as a result of human conflict. Similarly, in ‘The Next War’, Owen