Seminar reflections
There was a lot that was talked about but the thing the stood out the most for me was the conversation about why didn’t Paul just leave and forget about the war. My reaction to this was that he didn’t know what he would do if he did run away. He had nowhere to go and nothing to live for. His life was the war, nothing else existed to him. I think that it would have been very hard to transition back to normal life; having experienced what he already had in war he will always have those memories. He may not believe in the cause of the war but he was still loyal to his country and his friends. There is also the thought of what would he eat, where would he stay.
When all the horses were screaming the men couldn’t stand it. This is odd because these men see death of real live humans all around them every day. These men have taught themselves to think in a way that death doesn’t bother them as much. They experience horrible things that may make other people sick. And this is unbearable for them. In the book they start talking about it not being as bad if only they could see the animals. The reason this is affecting the soldiers; is that horses didn’t do anything wrong they were innocent. The horses were in extreme pain and the soldiers could not do anything about it. And because they could not see the horses they could not shoot them witch at that moment was the best thing for them. On page 64 the book goes into detail about how a horses guts trail out and snag on the ground yet the horse still gets back up and keeps running away, screaming. This must be a disgusting horrifying sight
I think that the biggest cause of there extreme discomfort was the fact that the horses could not have done anything to prevent it. It wasn’t their fault and they did not deserve that kind of pain and death. It also probably seemed to have been the Britons fault to have brought the horses into the war in the first place. As said by Detering pg 64 “I tell you it is the vilest baseness using horses in the war”
One thing that we spoke about during the session was the horrors that are experiences during war. I have read previously in articles books newspapers ect. About some really sick stuff that happens in world war 1 for example in history last year we read about the medic rooms of world war one and how they treated certain things like infected bullet wounds, this usually meant amputation. I can’t imagine losing my leg because of a small piece of lead.
When I think of the truth of war I think of the hard times all the people have to go through to live, and when I think of that I think of the lack of recourses. I chose this quote
Pg 37 “Now we might sleep if we weren’t so terrible hungry “. I think this represents the truth of war for each soldier who is actually in the war and not watching from the sidelines. Food and recourses are very important for a soldier’s actions in war and how they feel about the overall subject.
If I had to represent this in some other form I would put it on a poster. I would do this because I feel a poster is the best way to get this point across. With a poster you can see the poor environment that the soldiers need to live in and what they have to improve with, and it’s not much
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