Muddy Jungle River “The wreckage was vast and startling. The awful waste and destruction of war, even aside from the loss of human life, has always been one of its outstanding features to those who are in it (Pyle).” Wreckage, waste, destruction and loss of life are common themes of war. Wendell Affield’s Muddy Jungle River and the journals of Ernie Pyle help illustrate the truth about war. Muddy Jungle River depicts both sides of the war, the activities on the frontline as well as how war effects the loved ones on the home front. Over the past eight decades American views on war have varied.
Dzengseo first begins to describe the physical toll the soldiers had to deal with while frequently changing camps. He states that there have been instances when the army would have to walk long distances until their “feet were covered in blisters, and could not go any further” (Dzengseo 61), which indicates that these soldiers would basically be pushed to physical limits and the price would be so severe that the men even suffered painful blisters at times. Dzengseo also goes on to talk about another company of troops that were suffering from a major famine. The company “had nothing to eat, had been struck by foul vapors, and people and horses [became] ill and died in great numbers” (Dzengseo 70). Food shortage was always a big problem in the Chinese army and the
While secondary sources, as in textbooks, interprets and analyzes what happened in the past, a primary source, which is considered an original writing as in a diary, is composed at the time of an event in the past. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is an example of a first hand work, offering full insight in which Jakob Walter shares his experience of his life in Napoleon’s Grand Army during the campaigns of 1806, 1809, and 1812. This writing presents the strengths and weaknesses of primary sources while revealing Walter’s role as a witness to history as well as his observations as a soldier fighting in war. Throughout this work, Walter’s account exposes the reader to his experiences with his French comrades and his encounters with locals of the lands him and his fellow soldiers were moving through. Together they marched through Prussia and Poland while eventually fighting in the “disastrous” Russian campaign.
I was warned not to talk to too many people because there are many thieves and killers. I have heard many stories of people leaving for the Silk Road and never coming back Day 93 I took a lot longer than I had planned to get through the mountains. Food was scarce and I only met one person in the last 63 days. He was an interesting man we talked about our lives I told him about home and he told me about masulipatam, the city he was from and about his family. As the night went on we talked about more philosophical things such as our faith.
Martin, Joseph Plumb. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. Signet Classics, 2010. The book A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin tells the daring tale of Joseph Plumb Martin and his life in the military. The story is told through the perspective of the private, and is quite interesting in that it does not include the heroes of the time, instead focusing on the trials and tribulations of the common soldier during the American Revolutionary War.
They say this because of the non-stop war that is taking place. Every day, all day people are trying to constantly cross the border to the United States. Few are lucky enough to do so successfully; others are faced with various horrifying consequences. If caught by the border patrol, and you were fortunate, you would often be transported back to Tijuana. You are left with no food, no money if you had been robbed, no belongings and little clothing, with no place to sleep.
This was terribly inconsiderate of the military as the other 82% of the nation was left to starve as the military was the government’s top priority. This led to extreme cases of hunger across Russia which soon became famine. Food shortages were at their worst in the towns and cities, Petrograd suffered particularly badly due to the remoteness from the food-producing regions. Secondly, transportation was a key pre- existing war condition; it was the disruption of the transport system rather than the decline in food production that was the major cause Russia’s wartime shortages. The attempt to transport millions of troops and masses of supplies to the war fronts created unbearable pressure on the Russian transport system, and it bucked under the pressure.
They had no idea what they were going up against; many peons were worried for their lives. Leiningen stood up and announced to his peons “If you do not want to help me with this battle, you know where the door is, your last paycheck will be sent to you.” Some workers left but many stayed. Leiningen said “If you put your mind to it, your brain is capable of doing anything; we have a battle to fight people.” Over the next twenty-four hours the peons and Leiningen set up a complicated net system. The system made it nearly impossible for anything to get on the Llama farm. The net system had a trench system that held the nets up and electric fences that connected to towers where skilled archer peons where ready to engage.
In the first stanza, Owen presents the idea that the personal struggles faced every moment on the front line are extremely underestimated, immeasurably terrifying and “obscene”. It seems more realistic when the story is told from a first person narrative; it allows us, the readers, to imagine what it would feel like if “we” were in the trenches and fighting on the front line. That understanding makes us realise the cruel situation that was, for them, an everyday occurrence from which they had no escape. The determination of the soldiers that they “limped on” even when they were “asleep”, “had lost their boots”, were “lame”, “blind”, “drunk with fatigue” and “deaf” to their “distant rest” makes it almost seem as if they were unbreakable; their defiance against anything thrown in their path was god-like and shows an unwavering sense of honour, as they “marched” and “cursed through”, for the fate of all those left at home. The distant rest could represent the end of the war, so far out of their sight, or the release of an untimely death.
Jake was willing to serve his country, and paid for it dearly. Jake was mutilated by the war, and because of his injury rendered impotent. In this sense the world broke Jake, and took his life from him. For a lot of men, losing something like what Jake lost is seen as a fate worse than death. After Jake was wounded, and was lying bandaged up in The Sun Also Rises the colonel gave him a speech saying, “you, a foreigner, an Englishman… have given more than your life!” (Ernest Hemingway, pg.