April 27th, 1915 St Julien, Belgium Tanisha Kailey 116 Summit Street Montreal, Quebec Canada Dear Wife, I write this to you as I sit in my small and damp dugout. It is almost dawn, but the velvet darkness still lingers over the trenches as if the night had just begun. Beside me, my fellow soldiers are sleeping but their bodies seem almost lifeless. Some uncomfortably lay on their backs, meanwhile some rest while sitting because of the limited space. Considering what I have been through in the past months in Belgium, It wouldn’t be new to be beside corpses. Nowadays, it is very difficult to fall asleep. The exhaustion from daily chores doesn’t help put me to sleep anymore. Every time I close my eyes, I am brought back to the traumatic moments that i have experienced and I feel as though I am drowning; as if I am being held down and I cannot get up. Whenever my anxiety doesn’t keep me up at night, the deafening sound of shells exploding does. I am living in a nightmare. …show more content…
The conditions in the trenches are horrible. It is very dank and muddy and tremendously humid. The sun is blinding and there is scorching heat. I haven’t been out of my clothes in over a week and have foul body odour which is quite unnoticeable as it is overpowered be the nauseating smell of the rotting dead bodies. There are huge rats everywhere and hunting them has turned into a game. The lice problem is also getting worse. Every day, I watch the soldiers scratch and pick at themselves like animals. My good friend, Dean Mark, who I enlisted with, recently had his foot amputated as he suffered from a serious case of trench foot. All around me, people are dying and suffering. I can feel myself losing my mind. Is war really worth