"We've been under-non stop attack for days. Two of the blokes with me shot themselves on purpose to try and get sent home and out of the war. One blew three of his fingers off, the other shot his foot.
The thought came across, I could be going home to my wife and kids. I would be some use to them as a cripple, but none at all dead! I am starving here, and so are they at home, we may as well starve together. Injuring oneself to get out of it was quite common.
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Understand that no words can really describe the horror - the rats, the filth, the mud, cold and non-stop rain. No sleep. No food for days at a time and being under constant enemy fire from shells, machine-gun and rifle, and gas.
It's a marvellous thing, this modern war, and makes one feel pretty small. I wouldn't have missed it for anything, although at times one would give one's soul for it to stop.
Feeling deeply about it, one becomes less able to talk about it every day. Not because one understands it less each day, but because one grasps it better. But it is a silent teacher, and he who learns becomes silent too." – Cpl. Charles Young, 2nd BN, Welch Regiment, France ,1915. #ww1 #reality #zerofoxtrot #stayzero