Reaction Essay

Being a soldier during WWI would have been absolutely brutal. They had to put up with diseases, wounds and Mother Nature. Plus, they weren’t ever properly taken care of and supplied with enough things to help them prevent all of those things. I could never imagine anything like what they had to go through it is so appalling to me.

Having to deal with living in trenches that are dug below the ground and standing in muddy water anywhere from ankle to thigh high would be horrible. Some soldiers got trench feet and had to have there feet amputated and others got pneumonia. Plus, the mud and rain added an extra 34lbs to a person. That is lot for someone who is slaving away all day fighting and already carrying enough luggage. It’s amazing how they trucked through the mud during one of the rainiest time periods ever where only 18 days there weren’t rain and 11 of them below zero. That’s when frostbite starting kicking in leading to even more amputations. I couldn’t imagine just drinking some rum and chop there goes my leg; that would be the worst thing EVER!

I was disgusted at the fact that rats would sneak up on wounded soldiers and attack and eat their faces off because the soldiers couldn’t defend themselves because they couldn’t move. That was absolutely horrible. And then lice on top of that and having no way to cure it would not be ideal to me, it makes my head itch and my stomach turn just thinking about it.

Then when I read about how some countries came up with little gas bullets that made my head hurt. Suffocating from horrid air or not being able to catch my breath would be the worst way to die I think. But even worse then that would be shell-shock, completely going insane and being terrified of walking on the street and remembering ever little detail of war. I couldn’t deal with that and I have no idea how soldiers deal with it even today.

I can’t believe what it was like to be a soldier and makes me sick to even read about it. I’m not sure what I would do if I ever had to be put in any of those situations. They really had to battle there way through things to survive. I also couldn’t believe that 30% of people who were wounded and died and only less than 1% of people died of sickness. That is amazing that we had no medical attention for wounds and that people die after suffering so much pain. Honestly, I could never handle being a soldier.