Monologue From 'My Dearest Hana'

It was poorly constructed, polluted with human excrement and contained pools of water. Buried about a foot deep, hundreds of Germans and French lied in the trench since last October. Mud was my best friend, and sleep was interrupted by the booming of German shells. There was infection everywhere. Men were blown or shot to pieces, and their bodily fluids fed the rats. Those malicious critters were immense, crawling on and eating the decaying bodies. Some of the men had gotten a nasty disease that ate away at their feet. Trench foot, they called it. Unless we could dry our feet, our feet began to rot. Making up the majority of our diets were stale bread. With no appetite, I starved for most days. And containing no proper washrooms, we had areas in the trench where we relieved ourselves. Oh how the banging never ceased for sixty seconds! Some men were terrified of fighting, mama. Their minds went crooked, and their bodies twitched and trembled constantly. They wouldn't fight, or listen to orders. Most of them were executed, unless they had an injury that could send them home. Mama, Riley was shot in the heart yesterday. But, he died grateful. "It's an end to those shells, bombs, rats, lice and mud," he spoke his last

Men were living outside for days or weeks on end, with limited shelter from cold, wind, rain and snow in the winter or from the heat and sun in summer. Artillery destroyed the familiar landscape, reducing trees and buildings to desolate rubble and churning up endless mud in some areas. The incredible noise of artillery and machine gun fire, both enemy and friendly, was often incessant. Yet soldiers spent a great deal of time waiting around, and in some quiet sectors there was little real fighting and a kind of informal truce could develop between the two sides. Even in more active parts of the front, battle was rarely continuous and boredom was common among troops, with little of the heroism and excitement many had imagined before the war. The Italian infantry officer Emilio Lussu wrote that life in the trenches was ‘grim and monotonous’ and that ‘if there were no attacks, there was no war, only hard work’.[1] The order to attack – or news of an enemy assault – changed

The grim reality of living in muddy, rat-infested trenches epitomizes the brutal and prolonged nature of this new form of combat. Soldiers endured constant peril from enemy fire, disease, malnutrition, and psychological trauma, locked in a deadly stalemate that exacted a heavy toll on both sides. In the document packet, document 4 talks about how trench warfare got very severe and how the introduction of new machinery changed warfare too when gasses were made and added into the fight. Its effect on the French was a violent nausea and faintness, followed by an utter collapse. It is believed that the Germans, who charged in behind the vapor, met no resistance at all, the French at their front being virtually paralyzed” This shows how trench warfare got extreme and soldiers were left injured in many ways if not

In 1915, the Battle of Ypres affected many Canadian soldiers during the First World War and many endured harsh environments. Using historical perspective allows one to understand and appreciate the sacrifice they made for their country. Men entered the army expecting a quick and exciting adventure, but were quickly shown the brutal truth. They were immediately thrown into the relentless environment that was filled with artillery, blood, and death and they would have to endure for the next five years. Trench warfare was brought up during this time where soldiers practically lived in mud and disease. There were rats and lice, diseases such as trench foot, and unbearable weather; every morning the troops would wake up in the unforgiving trenches

Hello! My name is Mary Yang. I am a senior at Neuqua Valley High School. I have been taking Honors and AP courses throughout my high school career. I will be tutoring Math and French, which I have received high A’s in. I aspire to be an individual who someone can depend on, whether it is for schoolwork or for something personal. I was also recognized as a part of the National Society of High School Scholars. Outside of school, I love to dance, draw, and swim ever since I was

The war has been dragging on for far longer than predicted. Life in the trenches is dreadful. The constant bombardment from the enemy causes many to run and hid, along with many getting what we are calling shellshocked. We use it to describe when one can’t move with no visible injury or when they mentally can’t fight. But the worst has to be the rats, the rats are over the size of our house cats, we call them corpse rats for the soul reason that the rats eat the dead that laid in no man's land. Some of us shoot them for sport. The lice and trench foot is minor. But the Storm Troopers that we’ve been hearing about are fighting, their lightning quick attacks that demolish the line is one thing I don’t want to see. I hope Erik is okay, and well.

Being in these trenches are not only dark, wet and smelly, but there are rats everywhere. These rats are not normal size they are the size of cats. They feed off of the dead bodies in the trenches. One of my fellow cabin mates is in charge of killing the rats. Yesterday I witnessed a rat eating his way through a human body while that person was still alive. These rats are causing as much stress as the Germans. Rats are not the only pests in the trenches. Another pest is lice. I cannot stop itching my head and body. The lice have affected everyone. I hope this letter finds you well. Please pray for me. Your son

It is March first, I miss you so much it is unbearable. Sleeping can be awful out here in the trenches only because I want to be home in a comfy bed again safe and sound where war isn’t the only thing on my mind. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t breathe because I dream someone has invaded our trenches and shot me. It isn’t easy being out here but if it means fighting for you then it is what I will do.

Every day parents send their children off to school with the expectation that they will be returned home safely at the end of the day. However, with an ever increasing number of school shootings some parents are pulling their children out of school because they feel as if school can no longer offer the same sense of security as they once had. Some schools are pressing for the right for school instructors to carry a loaded weapon on campus. School instructors should be allowed to carry a loaded weapon on campus because it helps prevent school shootings, it protects them during school shootings, and gives students and staff an added sense of security.

The meadow near the Western Front was nothing compared to the vast fields of the prairie back home. There, in what seems like another lifetime, was a harvest full of life, colour, and promise. Here, there was only death and harshness. Trevor, our Commander, had once described the scenery of these fields in France before the chaos. He had said it was filled with little red flowers and high green grass. After three years of fatalities and rain, the scene shifted to represent the misery. There was no colour here. Our uniforms that had once been a deep green were now covered with dried mud. The scene before me was bleak. The sky was gray; as it had been since the first day we made camp in these trenches. The ground was muddy with small pools of

A number of settlement changes had occurred in California since 1796. The discovery of gold greatly accelerated these changes. Prior to the unearthing citizens from Russia, México, America and the natives themselves had already turned California into a universal frontier. It is due to this reason that immigrants from all over the world jostled up here. Many gold seekers and other investors flooded California all with the motive of benefiting from it. This in turn brought people from different races together and encouraged the spread and development of varying ethnic languages, social languages and religions to the new American state (Rawls and Bean 21). However, most of these visitors were not interested in settling down in California. The

I made it through the first wave I am alive, The sights are not so great as you can imagine it is a war after all. I am currently in a trench writing this letter. There is a fat rat right in front of me. I hope I don’t get trench foot because if I do you’ll never see me walk again. All my friends I made are dead I miss them they were the only ones I had left going for me in the war.

The trenches would smell like blood, gunpowder, and everything that was rotting in there. After the gunshots have stopped, and the air is filled with silence, the remaining soldiers drop onto the dirt ground, realizing they have survived another day. I always get this uneasy feeling, knowing that although I have survived another day, there is much worse to come. Even though I have survived, every shred of my sanity is gone. Before I go into another restless night, I think about my friends who have died for this war, and finally get the chance to mourn about them.

The Western World was revolutionized by the invention of the birth control pill in the 1960s, paving the way for the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s-70s. Men and women during this era brought sex from out of the shadows and into the forefront of societal conversation. The Sexual Revolution is one of two periods of sexual insurrection, therefore, it can be called the First Sexual Revolution. The Second Sexual Revolution occurs in the late 1990s and early 200s, beginning with the distribution of the erectile dysfunction pill, Viagra. The second Sexual Revolution occurred in the wake of the shift towards abstinence sexual education in the early 1990s, both factions promoting male sexuality and pleasure over female’s, like that of the

upon the men along side me. Some of the men so I have been told have