Living in a trench is something I will never forget. The barbed wire that surrounds the trench, the dead bodies lying everywhere, the rats, flies, lice, the dreadful smell that never seems to go away, the small rations of food that is provided and the scared looks on our fellow soldiers when a gunshot is fired. I will end now and pray that this is not the last letter I will ever send to you. I love you both with all my heart, Your son,
I close my eyes and see frogs and beetles lined in the trenches filled with knee-high water. I can smell the pervasive stench of feces, body odor, and death. I see the maggots, and I feel the cold mud when I close my eyes. I still feel my body itching from the lice outbreak that never got under control because of our tight quarters and unsanitary conditions. I see men begging to have their feet removed, the flesh on their feet rotting away because of the chronic wet conditions in the trenches.
As soon as they finished they hit the road again and about midmorning they came to a dirt road witch was about thirty minutes long and it lead to Samuel’s dirty old trailer. Waylon and Wayne introduced Terry to Samuel and then went in side to make coffee. Samuel told a story for a while as they listen quietly until he stopped and he fell a sleep. CHAPTER 16 In the evening while Samuel was still asleep they made a camp fire and set up their tent right next to it. They ate spaghetti and got ready for bed but Waylon and Wayne chatted for a while and Terry just remembered his old life back at home.
October 16th 2004 Matthew McInelly Rita Kats TGE 100W-03 10-11-2009 (discretion advised this material contains graphic narration of combat situations, injuries and death) OCTOBER 16TH 2004 As I slide on my flak vest checking my ammo and weapon for the next mission briefing, I cant help but feel a little burned out. I’m tired, sluggish, and a little fed up with the whole army bullshit. I’ve been stuck in this damn desert for a year and a half, probably more. I was suppose to go home with my last unit when they mobilized to return to their home station, but the clerks doing the processing found my assignment orders. They contacted the unit Commander of the unit I would be assigned to and found that they themselves would
Generals die in bed.’ ‘Well that’s a pretty nice place to die.’ “ Later that night the narrator explores the town on his own to get a little peace and quiet and stumbles on the door step of an old man, who lets him stay the night in exchange for tobacco, the next morning the narrator discovers that he has been put on leave. Character Revelations Old Man – Remains nameless in the book, speaks little English and is a scab when it comes to tobacco but allows the narrator to stay the night. Old Man’s Daughter – Remains nameless in the book, is around the age of 18. She is dark skinned like most Northerners and has olive, ruddy cheeks, sparkling eyes and black shiny hair. She sleeps with the narrator but it is not said if anything happens between them.
The soldiers pulled a wagon and they flung the lifeless body on to it, as if the body had no use anymore. I quickly take my position in the trenches, and in a few minutes I make two new friends I turn to greet them and I am faced with two long haired unshaved, unwashed men who are scruffily dressed in standard issue brown uniform and dirty soiled black boots: called David and William. The enemy were firing bullet at us, then all of sudden I heard a piercing scream, right behind me. I quickly spun over and see William who had been shot. I yelled out saying: “Man down, man down!” William was desperately moving his legs and arms, in an attempt to fight back his pain.
They lived in the trenches which were often water filled and rat infested. The smell of corpses and death was all around. Many of the doughboys were infested with lice or “cooties”, which was probably gotten from the rats. The sound of exploding artillery was heard and those who went “over the top” were often gunned down by German machine guns (The Western Front, 2010). For months these men lived in these trenches without baths, little food and knowing that death or mustard gas awaited them.
An example of some of the things that George Henderson says in his paper about poverty is, “Poverty is staying up all night on' cold nights to watch the fire knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means you’re sleeping child dies in flames. In summer poverty is watching gnats and flies devour your baby's tears when he cries.” In the novel Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario poverty is everywhere, some places are just worse than others like families living in shacks, only being able to eat one meal a day. These authors and others are pointing out an indisputable fact. Poverty is everywhere and everyone needs to be doing something about it. Sonia Nazario describes a very graphic picture of children without one or any parents, food, shelter, and clothing, which many Americans choose to ignore and go about their business like it doesn’t happen here and around the world.
You also felt their feeling of nervousness, and the anxiety of the soldiers that were in the trenches. The soldiers told you what they saw, felt, and thought while the battle was going on, like how “shells disinter the bodies, then reinter them, chop them to pieces, play with them as a cat plays with a mouse”(357) and how they considered “Verdun was terrible… because man is fighting against material, with the sensation of striking out of empty air”
The author also uses antithesis in describing the rich vs. poor, notables vs. the others to share that status doesn’t matter. Saturday; the day of rest, was the chosen for our expulsion. The night before, we had sat down to the traditional Friday night meal. We had said the customary blessings over the bread and the wine and swallowed the food in silence. We sensed that we were gathered around that familial table for the last time.