He was never the same after he come back from France.
When he joined up with Pershing and them, he was thirty, but full of fire to beat that old Kaiser.
Armistice was signed most a year before he got home to Jessup.
I was the only one recognized him, he looked so different.
He wheezed and rattled like an old window, thin as a stick with white hair.
He wouldn’t say nothing. Just picked up his shovel and dug. He dug all the time, dug for years, holes and holes.
Kids teased that he was like to dig to China.
I haven’t thought about digging to China in a long time. I think a lot of my generation had that idea as kids.
Poor man. Wounds and scars last long after the peace treaties are signed.
If you have been long enough among trenches… maybe you just feel safe in one.
Maybe he’s content in his own way.
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They called it ‘shell shock’ in those day – poor man.
So well done. The voices, the feelings…
A unique take on the prompt. War does that sort of thing. At least he gets a free workout and stays fit, unlike the guys who drink themselves to death.
Maybe his role in the war was “gravedigger”, he’s sure got the knack for it. A sad story. A whole new meaning to the phrase “digging to China”, too.
Tragic depiction of ‘shell shock’ or post traumatic stress suffered in WW1. I suppose trenches had come to symbolise safety, albeit of a very precarious nature. Both my grandfathers served and survived that war. Neither was left unscathed. War is dreadful.
Absolutely