This is why the British soldiers did not have beds, while the Germans did. Life in the trenches was plagued with death. Death was a constant companion to those serving in the trenches, even when no attack was launched or defended against. In heavily populated trenches the constant shellfire from the enemy brought random deaths, even if the victims were preparing to rush the enemy trench or scouring for cover. Also, rookies were warned on their first day to not look over the parapet of the trench into” No Man’s Land”, because many men died on their first in the trenches from a precisely aimed sniper’s bullet.
These gases tortured its victims for anywhere from 48 hours to a full 5 weeks before killing them. The crazed victims that lived through these horrible infections would most likely end up in an insane asylum. To further disillusion the troops, the leadership of common soldiers was given to an officer about two miles away from the front line, resulting in extremely poor decisions; Even the commanding officers that were at the front line possessed very poor leadership, especially on the French side. For a good first hand example of the despair, we turn to the work of Wilfred Owen. In Owens’s poem Dulce Et Decorum Est the soldiers are pictured as "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags...".
They had to watch every step they took. Most people and generals thought the trench warfare was not bad until they had to go down in them. Yes they offered protection to a certain extent, but they also hurt many soldiers. “Beside me a lance-corporal has his head torn off. He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts from his neck like a fountain.” (Remarque 115) That was caused by a fire that lifted 100 yards.
There were many rats in the trenches because of the rotting bodies which led to disease spreading like lice. Bodies were everywhere, and the men just had to move on and continue fighting even if it was their own brother. 8 The results of the Battle of Somme was a draw between the two armies. The both side gained very little ground but lost a large amount of men. The casualties were over 650,000 German, 195,000 French 420,000
At war the motto is “kill or be killed” and the choice you make can lead to your survival or your death. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Man I Killed” shows the traumatized side of war, the effect the death of another human being can have on a person, even if the person is your enemy. Death in general can put a person in a traumatic stage, a mourning stage. Witnessing a death happen right in front of your eyes is something people remember for a long time, if not until their own death. Most of the soldiers that come back from war suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as shown on many news channels.
Many soldiers developed trench foot, a frostbite like infection that led to extreme pain and caused the feet to swell and turn black. Trench foot also led to amputation in serious cases. Soldiers were in constant fear of their life as they were regularly killed by snipers/shells. Many wounded were left to die as rescue attempts were to dangerous. Due to the constant hardships of the trench life and the inability to defend themselves caused mental exhaustion.
Adrian Chapa Short Story Analysis: The Thing’s They Carried In "The Things They Carried," O'Brien writes, "Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to" (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 21). There are many characters throughout the short story all of which have very different character traits though they all share one thing: They are all in the very emotional, lonely and horrifying environment of war. Among the many people in the story 3 stuck out to me, showing traits of masculinity, cowardice and courage, these three people are First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker and Kiowa. First Lieutenant Cross is not any more or less courageous than any other person in his platoon but he does have an added amount of responsibility put on him because he is in charge of the lives of several men. When his soldier Ted Lavender died all he could do was cry and blame himself for his death, “He felt shame.
130). By emphasizing the death of this man consistently throughout the chapter, it pin point the agony he felt once he killed basically a man who was not fit for war. Through the constant descriptions of the dead body, it shows the emotional truth behind the feeling of killing a human being and from that readers can understand the anguish of taking the life of another person. These soldiers also had to endure killing people “because they were embarrassed not to” and the men had to sacrifice themselves so “they died so as not to die of embarrassment” (21). In “The Things They Carried” chapter, O’Brien goes in to great detail to tell every little thing each soldier carried and a major thing they carried was the feeling of honor and to die a man.
However it causes me great sorrow that we have lost 3500 of our own men. All of us fought in this battle to show that we were capable of planning and carrying out a successful attack. Throughout this war, I was scared Emily because my life was under constant threat, bullets were being randomly fired at us, I was seeing men die all around me from a bullet or because of fever and disease, I am thankful and proud that I survived this war. I love you so much and I can’t wait to see you and the children at
Some cons were the following: * Death and disease were omnipresent in the trenches. Sniper’s bullets, rapid artillery fires, and diseases took a heavy toll on the trench soldiers. * Over 200,000 soldiers are estimated to have died in the trenches of the Western Front. Though a good number of these died in action, a significant number succumbed to disease and infection