Most of us don’t know what war is like the closest we’ve ever been to war was probably you and your siblings fighting over the front seat lol good memories. But seriously we like to act what war is like when we are asked to describe what war is like we usually death, blood and guns but we don’t actually know what its like the true darkness of it and yes I know that sounds like a crime show. But suicide in the trenches by Siegfried Sassoon gives us a glimpse into what its like to be a soldier in war with horrific detail that left me shook to the core.

“I knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy,” this text tells me that the “simple soldier boy” doesn’t exist anymore due to the inhumane conditions of the trenches and also in the text “empty joy” kind of gives me the lack of purpose they had and how innocent the soldier was before the war. “In winter trenches, cowed and glum, with crumps and lice and lack of rum” this text describes the horrible conditions then were forced to live in, in the trenches with dieses and extreme cold it kind of seems like it would be hard to keep hope. This makes me feel depressed reading this because these men give up there lives for there country not knowing what war was actually like and also that they had to suffer through those conditions and a lot of them were young men that still had a life live which makes me grateful to you know live my life because they couldn’t but it also makes me feel that I should live my life to the fullest because they couldn’t. “Sneak home and pray you’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.” This is the last text of the poem and it tells me that Siegfried doesn’t want us to experience what they went through and that we should pray we never go through that. Reading this made me realize just how lucky we are to live and how lucky we are to go home to our family’s everyday.

This poem by Siegfried really does make you think about how we take life for granted and we should be more thankful to all the soldiers that died just for us to be here today. By bailee ukutaula