A Fallen Love

2. The Hidden Horrors of War

My love,

The journey here was as tedious as my relationship with Raymond... on a good day, and thats saying something.

The trenches are awful, you can never sleep for the noise, oh the noise! There is not one minute where we soldiers don't hear the bombs, or the firing of guns, or even the men left to suffer in no-mans land, screaming for someone to put them out of their misery.

We're ordered to not help them, or its the firing squad for disobedience, but it kills me not to help those men, it hurts more than being shot, not that I would know what being shot is like, but I can't imagine its worse than this torture to our minds.

Private Milton was sent home a few days ago due to a condition recently uncovered by this war known as Shell Shock, he was sent away from the front lines to help him cope with the illness.

I hope he'll get better, but I doubt it, he was one of my better friends, even though he could be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but he reminded me of my little brother, you remeber Charlie don't you? What a devil he was, I wish I could see him again but I don't want him to see what war does to men.

I feel so alone now Milton is gone, yet so alive, its almost as if I haven't been alive until I arrived, fighting for my country makes me proud, i hope it makes you proud aswell Elaine, not that you haven't made me feel alive, you've always made me feel alive, but in a different way.

There's this infection that a couple of my unit has gotten, we've called trench foot and it's disgusting, we're pretty sure its to do with the conditions we live in, the mud mainly.

There's no comfortable place to sleep and no one from home to comfort us, this guy in the next unit over, Peters, went crazy, he was ordered to go over the line by his comanding officer, and he outright refused to go over and attack, so he was send to the firing squad for cowardice, pretty grizzly if you ask me.

But I guess to some people being shot by your own country is a better fate than going over the lines, but he had no hope in us.
I have hope, hope that this war will end and I can come home to you, coming to this war, suffering in these conditions, its made me realise every minute means the world, and I'm not going to stop until I have you, I don't care what price, but every second counts and I want to spend all my seconds with you.

I'm sorry my love, it's my turn for scout duty,

Jesse