A moving piece by Andrew Joyce. One that should teach us all something the world seems to have forgotten.
I went off to war at the tender age of sixteen. My mother cried and begged me to stay, but my country needed me. I would not see my mother again for four very long years.
Due to my age, I was assigned to field headquarters as a dispatch courier for the first two years of the war. However, by the beginning of the third year, I had grown a foot taller and was shaving. And because men were dying at an alarming rate, I was sent into the trenches.
They say that war is hell. I say hell is peaceful compared to living in a muddy trench with bombs exploding around you at all hours of the day and night, although there were periods of respite from the shelling. Those were the hours when the enemy had to let their big guns cool or else the heat of firing would warp them. I lived like that for two years.
I was at Verdun where I saw the true hell of war. After eleven months, we fought to a standstill. When the dead were counted, almost a million men from both sides had given their lives and not one inch of ground had been gained.
By November of 1918, we were out of food, out of ammunition, and almost out of men to send to the slaughter. The people at home had had enough of seeing their sons and fathers and brothers shipped home in boxes. There were marches and protests against the war. Near the end, the dead were not even sent home, but buried in the fields where they had fallen.
At last, the war was over. I am told that nine million men died in those four years, and another twenty million were wounded. I was there and those numbers seem a little low to me, but what do I know? I was only a private.
Dragons Rule OK. V.M.Sang (author) 
Thanks for sharing this, Viv. It’s heartbreaking and makes little sense. Humans at their very worst and most insane. Andrew’s a wonderful writer… I’m heading over to read the rest. ❤
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It brought tears to my eyes. Humanity has learned nothing, even after all the dreadful wars that have occurred in recent history.
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I agree…. nothing. It’s scary. And sadly it isn’t over.
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Once again, ample evidence of when we ignore history, we doom ourselves to repeat the same old, stupid, pointless, deadly mistakes. Unfortunately, ultimately considering war when tyrants are at work is hard to avoid unless the tyrants stop being tyrants. Now there’s a problem searching for a solution! At least recent wars have been limited compared to the disasters of the past. But that’s small comfort. 😦
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Yes. Recent wars have been limited, and there’s an outcry when civilians are killed. Small comfort though. I wish people would stop referring to WW2 as The War, or worse, The Last War. There have been many since, and the UK has been involved.
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