Imagine you are Siegfried Sassoon, write a letter to a friend at the Home Front describing how you feel about the war

Letter

Dear Jack,

How have you been doing? Life here is getting worse and worse. I’m becoming more and more bitter, frustrated and fed up with the meaningless war and our incompetent and pathetic Generals.

Despite being Generals, they are not at all robust, fit and healthy to set a good legacy to us soldiers. Instead, to our extreme astonishment, they are all bald, corpulent and old. Even after a little exercise, they already start to pant heavily like wretched and despicable hags. What a good example they are to us! Moreover, they wear posh and clean clothes, the kind of clothing that we, poor soldiers, can never touch, even in our dreams. You know what, even if there is a blurred stain of dirt on their clothes, they will get all irritated and petulantly order us around to wash the slightly dirty clothes and get them new clothes. Yes, they do not even get themselves new clothes because if they do a brief exercise of walking, they will get tired soon and already start to pant heavily. Now, do you see how fat, unfit and frail the scarlet Majors are?

In addition, while the soldiers are suffering from incessant and violent fights, those Generals just sit tight in their hotel, hide in safety and enjoy their mundane joys. They thoughtlessly force the reluctant soldiers to the war with the hope of overwhelming the enemy’s force with abundance while they keep drinking alcohol excessively and tell each other absurd jokes. How thoughtful and brave they are!

Now, let me tell you a story. Last week, I was commanded to bring coffee to the Generals’ room. As I approached, I heard some hysterical laughter in their room. Curious, I stood still and ...

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Now, let me tell you a story. Last week, I was commanded to bring coffee to the Generals’ room. As I approached, I heard some hysterical laughter in their room. Curious, I stood still and tried to eavesdrop them. This is what I heard:

-“Nice joke! By the way, have you read the Roll of Honour yet? There seems to be lots of names

in this list.”

-“Eh no! But who cares, anyway?”

-“You’ve got a point. Who cares about our defeat in the last scrap?”

-“Oh! Look here. There’s Slater Black in this list. Poor young chap. I used to know his father well.”

-“But again, why should we care about it? There’s tons of other soldiers dead out there. But

we’re alive, and that’s the whole point. We are still able to safely enjoy our lives here!”

-“You’re right. Fighting is their job. Ours is to sit here, order them around and recruit more

people. Muhahahah! What an easy life! Now, can we go back to our cards game? I will win this

time, buddy!”

I can’t find a word to describe how furious, resigned and disappointed I was after I heard the conversation. I was very aghast, as if lightning had struck me. What on Earth are they thinking? Why are they talking about war and soldiers’ deaths with that callous, insensitive and uncaring attitude. Why don’t they treat war seriously and respect our sacrifice for the country?

Now, I feel so hopeless. Having those types of people as our Generals, what’s the point of us trying to fight for our country? In my opinion, war is a meaningless thing that should not be applauded but stopped. Right now, I regret that I enlisted. I regret that I let myself gullibly misled by the propaganda poems. I regret them all, because they have made me face the painful reality of war, and of the cowardly Generals who just sit there and do nothing.

With best wishes,

Siegfried Sassoon

P/S I will try to escape this bedlam as soon as possible.