Life without War

Dear Diary,                                                                                                                       March 2nd, 1919

Coming home from the war

Sarah has aged; lines of worry seemed to be have etched into her forehead. She tells me that every moment of the day she prayed to the Lord for my well being and when  she heard the war had ended was ecstatic knowing that I was on my way home. But now, she says that her worry has grown even more. I've lost two of my fingers: my pinky and index, and my body contains at least fifty scars, but worst of all my mind has retreated into a shell of constant fear. I fear every little sound and action. How do we finally know that we are done? What if they call us again? I will not go. They cannot take me. They've already  made me into the living dead.

My age is only twenty two. Do they not say that this is the age of youth, the age of adventure? Here I sit, with Sarah's hand around me, yet I do not feel any of this. I've seen men blown into a million pieces, I've seen men gagged to death by gases, I've seen men cry for help and not been able to help them; I've experienced too much in these three years, I'm done with experience now.

I want all my memories to fade, I want them to disappear, but I know ten years from now my mind will still remember each detail with rigour. The war is a part of me now, and will never leave.
Sarah has shown me a poem that I think can give you only a glimpse of what I have gone through.

The lies of adventure filled our ears only to be shattered:

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4) 

Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.

Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .

Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12) 

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13) 

To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.(15)"
By: Owen Wilfred (War poet)

Yours truly,