Ypres 1916

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Dear Da,

Cold here still, but that’s April for you. Ha ha. Thank you for the stockings, You have no idea how we covet them here. I think the last time my feet were really dry was at Christmas. 

He stopped, pen poised. He was out of topics.

He wouldn’t describe the hellscape of mud and splintered trees and rotting corpses, of the trenches filled with icy water long after the rains ceased.

He would not write of the soldier, his friend, caught in the wire of no man’s land, every night screaming for someone to please please kill him.

 

16 thoughts on “Ypres 1916

  1. Sadly I also was reminded of the First World War, like the Second World War that they happened horrifies so many of us. That last line, …

  2. Chilling.

    I have many letters written by my Uncle and my father in law from WWII. The war had changed, but the end result remained the same. I always wondered about what they didn’t tell, couldn’t tell…

    I am certain I now know.

  3. Internalizing that kind of horror is awful enough. I can understand not wanting to burden the family with what a soldier has seen. WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but I think as long as there are humans, there will be war. Tragic. Well told story.

  4. Nice WWI reference and story. The poor soldiers, suffering yet compassionate enough to withhold the truth from their families so that they would not worry/suffer more.

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