Battlefield Orders

The inventions of man are creations dealing nothing but swift death. The English aren't holding back their new weapons...

Their machine guns are capable of clearing ranks of men quickly. It's a depressing sight to see a row of friends--good men--shot down by a barrage of bullets.

Still yet, I think the worst way to fall would be in the flames. I can only imagine the pain men must feel as fire burns their flesh to a blackened crisp...

And those Hellish tanks... Oh, God... one of those monstrosities can take down 10 of us before we even put a dent in it. And the mortar, it's just like the tanks, but faster and more portable. At least they miss sometimes, but bombardment is almost worse... The brutality of war is incredible...

Some of us are even afraid to travel in the water, now that the English has submarines patrolling the waters. The silent predator can sink us all before we even see it. Maybe if we had more airplanes, we could be flown out, and just end this war by dropping enough bombs... I'd rather soar through the skies than risk my neck on the front line any day.

No Man's Land is... kind of funny, actually. If one didn't know the bloodshed behind it, it would almost look peaceful. "No man's land" is what we call the space between our trench and the English's. Nothing out there is alive; the fields are black; No Man's Land is the embodiment of death itself.

The gas, also... It's repulsive; men writhing in pain until they slowly meet their gruesome end. And even if it doesn't get us, it at least flushes us out of the trenches. Then they take advantage of our exposure and attack them. Chlorine gas, tear gas, mustard gas, prussic acid... the list goes on and the gases have a range of effects. From burning to paralyzing to poisoning each are lethal in a different way.

Although it pains me to write I recently found out one of my greatest heroes in the war had been shot down. Richthofen, the "Red Baron"... when I got the letter saying he had taken down his 80th plane I also found out he'd been shot while in pursuit of one of the Allie's pilots. Kantorek sent me a picture from the funeral:

Schlieffen's Plan failed. It was a miserable attempt to circle the British. Some of us held our ground while the others made a sweep around to circle them. The others were pushed back by the Allies. Damn it... I thought this was our chance to end this God-forsaken war.

When Franz Ferdinand was killed Austria declared war. Hell is on Earth, with Princip to blame. The Mlada Bosna planned out his assassination, and obviously Austria-Hungary took action. Damn the Black Hand!

Who would've ever thought I'd be this interested in politics... Maybe that's one good thing that came out of me coming here, I guess...

A couple of guys were talking about what they read in some diary. Her name was Helen Barry, or Burrey, something like that. At the front we'll do just about anything for kicks. I read some of it. It was just some stories about an American nurse stationed on the trains.

I walked through the trenches today, sketching. After that I just marked where some of Second Company would be.

...I never was the most artistic student.

But now we have pal battalions... With pal battalions, I get to serve alongside people I know, instead of being thrown into a group of soldiers we don't know. It'd be weird to fight without Kropp, Westus, and Kat. Maybe this encourages more people to join, and raises overall morale... But I'm wondering if it's really the most effective. If someone gets hurt, we're more likely to be emotional about it.