Suicide in the Trenches- Analysis

The overall message in this poem is a drill sergeant educating young soldiers and preparing them for the harsh reality of war. He is not playing ‘Mr. nice guy’, he is being tough and strict to give the soldiers no easy way out.

Among American civilians, whites have historically and significantly led the way in the rates of suicides. Although leveling off after the 1990’s, the rate of white suicides has still been almost twice as much as minority groups. It has also been shown that males commit suicide significantly more than females.

Stressed by war and long overseas tours, U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year at the highest rate on record, the toll rising for a fourth straight year and even surpassing the suicide rate among comparable civilians. Army leaders said they were doing everything they could think of to curb the deaths and appealed for more mental health professionals to join and help out. Clearly, the military is going above and beyond to try and prevent further lives from being taken.

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

The author was giving a message then at the end of the poem it changes. He was giving the message that war happens to everybody and that they will have to go to war at some point in there life. The problem is that they don’t know the bourdon that it puts on the people that he has supported and been supported by until his son is sent of. He gets a totally different feeling when he doesn’t know what could happen to his son. He gets his message across by proving that every body has something to do with war wether they like it or not. Your parents might have been to war, if not them then your uncles, cousins, friends, or your neighbors(old men). Then if it isn’t them it could be your child who is going and the feeling is different, you lose the feeling of security when you cant protect your child. He

There are many issues within the military organization that require focus and resolve in order to maintain the superior fighting force that protects the homeland. Unfortunately solider suicide is one of those issues. Suicide is the deliberate taking of ending of one’s life. It is often associated with a severe crisis that does not go away, or may worsen over time (Warning Signs, n.d.). This issue requires knowledge and training to help protect fellow soldiers. The military organization has decided that required annual training be conducted to every person wearing the uniform. The goal of this training is to increase awareness of suicide risk factors, warning signs, and how to provide intervention to at-risk soldiers.

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

Ever thought about our soldiers and veterans and why they are diminishing so quickly? I would soon find out for myself about a disorder that is causing this diminish and how much it is being overlooked. The summer of 2014 would be a summer I would never forget. A family friend, a caring, energetic and happy boy would soon choose to take his own life. Some one you always saw and would make sure you were okay. Never in a million years would I have ever thought twice that a disorder would ever take him ever. I left out that he was a soldier. Serving his first tour and seeing things he would’ve never expected to see. He came back home lucky for us safe and sound or at least we thought. Soon we would see that he wasn’t himself and see things change.

In the second stanza the distinctive experience of power is present. The use of the technique of imagery and emotive words “to pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows’ tells us that the soldiers were strong, loyal and had enough power within a degree to assist fellow soldiers. The use of personification to create sound “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” This leads the audience to understand what the soldiers were up against without even directly saying it. The imagery visually shows the scene in their

Fighting for justice in “Revolutionary Suicide” presents two conflicts between suicide and salvation. In Oakland California around 1970, African Americans were being so mistreated that a movement was created to fight for black power which is known as Black Panther Party. African Americans were going up against the police and government of the racist south. This was a time Jim Crow laws had just ending along with segregation ,but that dosen’t mean that the whites of the south still didn’t have the same intentions they used to have about blacks. Which lead to many confrontations that resulted in death or injury causing revolutionary suicide. In poem “Revolutionary Suicide,” The style of the poem is built of a cause and effect. First, the speaker addresses that having nothing causes him to have everything .“By having no family I inherited the family of humanity …By having surrendering my life to the revolution I found internal life.” Readers can get an impression that the speaker would make a great leader. Especially when he tells the audience that he is willing to sacrifice himself in order to gain revolution. The speaker is confronting the opposition letting them know he is not afraid of death nor them. He also writes this in the poem

In the first part of the poem the writer shows the difficulty he is having with taking a human life. In the second stanza he says “Making night work for us the starlight scope bringing men into killing range. This dark tone helps to emphasize the struggle the author is feeling as a soldier in war. Also he shows his emotions directly. In stanza 3 he says “The river under Vi Bridge takes the heart away”. This quote shows the feeling that the author gets

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

Twenty-two United States Veterans commit suicide every day, giving approximately one thousand seven hundred and eighty Veterans deaths due to suicide for the year of 2016 to date (“Operation Never Forgotten”). Veteran suicide is an ongoing problem because veterans enter the civilian world directly after receiving discharge from the armed forces and struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and acute stress, and anxiety (“Veterans ' Services”). Veteran suicides have become a large concern for members of the United States Armed Forces, Operation Never Forgotten (ONF) is an organization that is helping veterans find purpose and a reason to live, by working with the U.S. Congress, they could pass a law

"My thoughts become confused. This atmosphere of carbolic and gangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates" (Remarque 29). Brutal quotes like this one are found throughout All Quiet on the Western Front, "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "How to die. " In these selections the author uses the viewpoint of a soldier on the front.

The second stanza speaks of how it so often slips our mind that war does not only affect the men who are in direct combat. The young women too, suffer greatly in silence. Though so removed from the grime and blood of the battlefield, one cannot imagine the excruciating pain of having to part with their loved ones, with the knowledge that 'the holy glimmers of goodbyes ' might as well be goodbye forever. Every moment of the day, they agonize over the terrifying thought that their loved one has been shot or injured. There is no way of telling - and the guessing game is exhausting. There is no more joy or excitement in life as each 'slow dusk ' drags by, their only reason for existence condensed into a single purpose - receiving news from the battlefield. Often time, their agonizing wait ends in a heartbreaking death. This is signified from the line 'the drawing down of blinds '.