Wwi Letter

World War I Dear dad,

its really toght here being out at war. we have a very strict routine

I am still in the St. Mary's Nursing Home in

Broadstairs. They say that I have almost completely recovered from the

trauma, and I should be able to leave this place within the next two

months. I think that I should be impatient to leave, but being here gives

me a lot of time to think - do I really have that much to leave for? I

know that I will always have you and mum, but have I really returned to "A

Land Fit for Heroes", as had been promised by the politicians? The

country to which we have returned seems to be an entirely different one to

the one that we left - when we left, the country was full of enthusiasm, we

were encouraged to enlist - indeed, anyone who did not enlist for service

was made into a pariah. The country to which I have returned is

recession-hit, and scarred by battle. No-one here can even start to

understand the loss experienced by all of the Tommies who fought. That is

not their fault, it is impossible to understand how it feels to watch your

best friends dying one by one, and being totally unable to prevent it, or

the fear that the next attack of the Boche might be the one where a bullet

hits you in the head, that that you might not make it back from the next

offensive, or that maybe you won't be killed but just be left stranded in

no-man's land, with one of your legs blown off, that the next shell might

explode on you. That this moment might be your last. Very few realise

that the scars carried by Tommies are not just those from amputations, but

also from the things that we saw, and heard. The continuous drumming of the

deluge of shells that continued for four years has sent