Will I survive?

Date: 1865 April 24th

my name is John, age 24 years old, a family of 3 kids and a loving wife waiting for me.

It's been 3 years since last joined the American army, I haven't had sleep for the past 2 days and hardly any food to eat. I have bags under my blue eyes. “I'm an ordinary soldier fighting for my life and hoping I’ll survive long enough for the war to end. As a soldier it's very demanding. Some times I would have to wake up at 3am in the morning to march for 2 hours, our legs would be in so much pain that some soldiers would fail to catch up, and they'd end up back to square one.

We had to do our orders to receive food for the day. However, we had to cook them because the foods we got were raw. Sometimes when you do all your orders correctly, your reward for the day would be a little of whiskey or a girl of rum. Most soldiers had to eat nothing for at least 2-4 days until someone had time to teach them how to cook. I would often hide the little food I don't eat into a small container and save it for later when I'm hungry again, because some days you get no food at all. Up to 500-1000 soldiers die from starvation because of that.

Today I'm doing an all-nighter as the watch out person. It's a job everyone has to do everyday. We take turns so we can get some sleep for the day/night. I grabbed the left over pork I cooked from yesterday to eat while I watch over the camp. As I stepped outside my cabin, it was black as night and I could feel the cold harsh air trying to cover my whole body. I shut the door and quickly walked to my room to grab my coat and hat. Opening the door, I was ready to do my duty. Stepping on the snow, my foot quickly sinks for a few seconds. All around me was trees that have been roofed with white snow. Swiftly going to the top of the highest roof, I sat down and ate. As I ate, a wave of cold air sweeps my hat off my head. Looking to the direction that the wind came from, I saw people moving closer and closer. There was a telescope next to me sitting next to a bottom that said “alert”. I pointed to the track they were coming from, it was intruders! I ask myself in panic, “ what should I do?'