Life in the trenches letter home

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English Coursework        

Trench Letter Home – Coursework

Dear Mother and Father,

    As I write this I sit in my dugout by candle light, perfectly fine. My life has changed forever. I cannot believe that only a month ago I was sitting back home with my caring family, life seemed so simple. I can remember rocking on my chair, I was so eager to sign up. But the grim reality of war strikes hard and fast. Looking on at your fellow companions launch into the nightmare of war and torment only to fall down beside you a second later is an anguish we all have to cope with. Death is as common as birds here. I just wish a bullet would hit me so I could travel back home and be with you both again but I have a duty to perform and a country to serve. If dyeing for my country is what she requires then so be it.

     Life in the trenches gets longer and longer as time moves on. Free time is as rare as meals these days and I cannot help thinking the officers are eating well while we starve. Meals are a perfection we took for granted before: stale biscuits, gruel and bread is a treat here. At least I will never take another meal for granted again so have no fear of me complaining about your meals when I get back home (I guarantee I will). Trench life seemed fun, an experience no man could live without. How noble were the people signing up. I just wish it was true. Rats are now a major problem in the trenches, they come in their millions. War is a luxury to rats, free and fresh meals all day long but in the trenches they haunt us, especially at night. They crawl over us when we sleep and it is not a pleasant experience when they scamper over your mouth. It was only a week ago a rat was chewing on a dead soldier which got one of my friends so annoyed that he shot it, only slipping to hit an officer in the foot. The “mobile” war has turned into stalemate, the Germans didn’t plan on moving so their trenches are top of the range and I heard they even have brick rooms. Our lives are being wasted over yards of land; the German trench is only 100 yards away. At least the conditions are giving us relief. It’s slowly getting drier as we move into spring – less chance of trench foot with no muddy, wet and miserable trenches.

Join now!

    The weapons we have required are so advanced that our tactics aren’t developing quickly enough. When I joined up we were walking across no mans land, rifles at hand, getting mowed down by machine gun fire. The worst fear in every soldier’s life at war is gas. It can strike at any time without warning (I always have my gas mask so close so there is no need to worry about me).  Two weeks ago the Germans used chlorine gas on the front line, those unfortunate enough to be there were in constant agony for 5 days before ...

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