Back, and forth, back, and forth I rocked on the old squeaky rocking chair out the front of my old family home. The grass was fresh and sparkly with dew. I took a shuddering breath of the crisp morning air that filled my lungs to the brim, after the war I appreciated the little things a lot more. Like the clean air that I could freely breathe and the vast expanse of crisp green grass and evergreen trees that filled my vision. I could move freely, not having to be afraid of stepping on anyone's foot in the crowded trenches. I gasped; the panic was setting in. I was back in the trenches, squished up against the side. I felt the dirt on my back and the sweat that made my shirt cling tightly against my ribcage. All I could smell was sweat and smoke. Dark, thick, smoke-filled air filled my lungs as I breathed deeply. Then suddenly, like someone just flicked a switch or turned on the TV, everything came to life. All my senses were overloaded with the loud, booming sounds of gunfire, the sweat dripping down my back and the heat of the bodies pressed against me in the crowded trenches. Then came the shouts, orders were furiously being shouted, soldiers started climbing up the ladders to the battlefield. As I was getting closer to the ladder, terrifyingly awaiting the battle ahead, Neil, another soldier in my unit, …show more content…
Someone shouted my name, my vision blurred, I closed my eyes, then opened them again. I was back in the house. Back to the expanse of forest in front of me. A little girl was standing there, staring at me with eyes wide. She looked scared of me. I looked down at her hands to see them bottled in fists at her side. When she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Then she turned on her heel and ran off. The "Wait" - "Wait!" I yelled, but she didn't stop. Then my mother came rushing around the corner. She has always been a bright and cheery woman. The only thing I can remember from my time here as a child was her cheery smiles and warm
Soldiers' Account of Trench Life Life in the trenches was horrific; the frontline soldiers dreaded having to return to them. During their tour of duty there, they lived in considerable tension. The trenches were far from safe; possibly one third of all casualties on the Weston front were killed or wounded in the trenches, mostly from artillery fire. In this essay I will be discussing and comparing the accuracy and differences between the soldiers' accounts of the trenches and official accounts composed by the government.
THE PAST :.. In days gone by, the four species managed to live in perfect harmony. Witches, werewolves and vampires lived in secret, blending in with the humans on a daily basis - and the humans remained completely in the dark about their existence. It was after thousands of years of living this way, whilst everything was completely normal, that a small group of vampires decided that they’d had enough. They spent months devising plans.
Today is the day before we go over the top. I’m dreading it, dying or
`In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque being a soldier in World War I was not at all amusing. The soldiers in the war,fighting for their country, had very inferior living conditions such as ditches infested with rats, a widespread of lice among the men and decaying bodies all around them. This war was the turning point for technology, introducing more advanced weapons making killing much easier. They found from trenches to protect themselves from being killed. Each side would switch off running into no man's land. Not only did these soldiers undergo blatant living conditions but they were also losing limbs, dying and watching their men be killed. Three major ways in which the soldiers were affected by the war in All Quiet on the Western Front were that they faced many physical injuries, they were traumatized by watching man after man die making them fearful, and they gained a great amount of camaraderie.
Beginning with a series of descriptions about the soldiers returning from the frontline, Owen shows us how these men contradict the model soldier portrayed in the recruitment posters. The soldiers that we see now have become beaten down with pain, and exhaustion: “old beggars, bent double” and “hags”. Here Owens shows us the true reality of war, and its impact upon the soldiers, he; shows us how the everyday combat has taken its toll upon the generation, practically taken out the whole cohort.
“ I repeat, anyone living within 100 miles of Mt. Everest, please evacuate. This is not a joke, evacuate right now,” the news anchor cautioned.
There is a truth universally acknowledged among those that have seen combat: war changes a man. Sometimes this a positive change, instilling bravery into the hearts of faint-hearted young men or creating bonds of camaraderie that will last lifetimes. Unfortunately, more often war sees a darker change in a man, sees him stuck down, left lifeless in soul if not body. WWII was a dark time for America, and many of the strapping soldiers that left for the glory of war came back injured, seeing ghosts on every front, sick in a way that many people did not understand. Tayo, in Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, is one such man, and Silko’s use of a wandering and fractured narrative showcases these symptoms, and brings to life the struggle soldiers had adjusting to home after visiting what some would call hell.
Before his death, more than sixty after the Battle of the Bulge, his father finally began sharing more intimate, painful wartime experiences, as we walked together around the Northern Portland neighborhood where they lived most of our lives. The walks were long even though the distances were short. His walker rattled and his feet barely cleared the cracks in the sidewalk as we ambled along. His memory ebbed and flowed, as past blurred with the present, and the new stories revealed a darker side of war.
“Now the bleedin war is over Oh, how happy I was there; Now old Fritz and I have parted, Life’s one everlasting care. No more estaminets to sing in, No mamoiselles to make me gay; Civvie life’s a bleedin failure, I was happy yesterday.”(398). This post-World War II song exemplifies the complexity of soldiers’ feelings towards war. There is no simplicity in how a soldier feels in battle or in the sanity under which they operate; often there is no method to the madness. The extreme conditions of war reveal man’s basic instincts and expose human nature. In an attempt to understand the issues that influence a soldier on the front line, Richard Holmes’s Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle faces the grisly truth about men in war. Holmes addresses soldiers’ motivations in and out of battle. He addresses fear, pain, fatigue, the enemy, and death as a part of battle. Out of the field, he discusses boredom, patriotism, religion, basic training, and family. The main points are well-researched and essential to understanding soldiers’ actions within war. His attention to the unpleasant details, that he deems essential to a soldier’s
The Creature That Opened My Eyes Sympathy, anger, hate, and empathy, these are just a few of the emotions that came over me while getting to know and trying to understand the creature created by victor frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. For the first time I became completely enthralled in a novel and learned to appreciate literature not only for the great stories they tell but also for the affect it could have on someones life as cliché as that might sound, if that weren’t enough it also gave me a greater appreciation and understanding of the idiom “never judge a book by its cover.” As a pimply faced, insecure, loner, and at most times self absorbed sophomore in high school I was never one to put anytime or focus when it came time
“Get up!!!” The whistle of the bullets flying past my head was like nothing I have ever heard ending anything and everything in it’s path. The roaring sound of bombers Echoing down roads and through homes Like a song of the devil himself. My life flashed in my eyes. And now to think it was over was nerve racking. Fire’s blazed in homes like a flower blooming in mid spring… The year Is 1944. Me and my men are going to a place where happiness Was imprisoned and not to be let free for it would be executed at once.A place Where the sky was black as coal.a place I’d never call home.The ekos of family's cries over gone loved ones for to them there end was also there beginning. The smell of gunpowder, mud ,and maggots in my food was not what
The emotion that illuminates from these statements is powerful and intense. It is now clear, that one who has lived through war, could not possibly glorify it. The speaker vividly describes the hell soldiers endure while desperately trying to stay alive. Exhausted, injured, and “Drunk with fatigue”(566), the men go on—terrified, yet brave, the men go on. These men are not just a bunch of nameless men going to battle, they have names, and families, and beating hearts.
They walk away from the battlefields hoping to leave everything there, but every daunting moment of the war scene is a vivid memory until the day they die. Not only is fighting a war challenging for a soldier, but life after the
Men and women stood a little taller in their homes today. Ears straining to hear the sound of imagined trucks. Hearts racing as the smell of fear and sorrow wafted through the air. I felt fear more than anything, and sweat was pouring down my back in rivers; soaking the back of my shirt. I could see the wall in the distance from my place in front of the door. The wall kept us all safe from the outside world beyond the border of the United Sates, but how much longer would that last? The war had taken so much from us, leaving us to a dictatorship that had changed drastically from person to person.
The enemies kept coming and I ran away from them. Only a couple of people died and the rest lived. They saw I ran and knew I was afraid about what is going to happen. We stayed hiding in the trenches afraid and we didn’t know what to do. It was night and they kept booming where we were at and fell asleep during