Letter

To my dear family:
I know it has been a few months since I wrote to you, but I have been going through a lot of trouble. In these few months I was going to die several times, not mentioning the fact that I got sick numerous times. This letter will explain in details how life is for me here. Also with the start of winter don't expect me to write to you too much, anyway here are the details:

First of, trenches. What can I say if that is hell on earth. I miss my comfortable seat with you. Trenches are the WORSE place on earth. Did you know that they got all muddy in winter and that they caused us to have fungus on our feet? . A friend of mine even had to get amputated because the fungus grew so much that the only solution was amputation. And the only thing the builders do is put wood on the trenches in order to stop the mud from sliding off the sides I didn't mention the rats yet did I? Well they are the size of rats and they would eat dead corpses or walk on us while we sleep. We also get bored really easily, this is one of the few moment I have free and I decided I would use it to send a letter to you.

We barely fight, we have a balance of powers therefore nobody has too much power over the other. I'm very thankful for that because that's the reason why I'm not dead yet. Though, life here is very boring, all we do is read books and make sure we don't breathe poison gases. Talking about poison gases it started with gasses that were not too harmful to us suchas tear gases, but then these Germans made chlorine gases. These are pretty deadly, once the french threw one in our trench, luckily i didn't die. Another gas is phosgene gas, they were only used once considering the fact that they are very deadly. Finally the mustard gas, this gas is the worse of all for us. It makes us weak and slowly kills us. I'm lucky i didn't get that.

The smell in here is disgusting, id rather smell rotten eggs for the rest of my life then live through this another day. As i mentioned earlier these rats or not only eating dead's, but they also make the smell horrendous. We do try to kill them because they make about 900 offspring YEARLY.
I'd like to talk about the trench cycle, this is why I am talking to you. Some men serve first cycle while others like me rest. Though when we get badly attacked all of us serve, that's our defensive method. However most of the time our usual service works just well.

Our food is just disgusting, I miss your hot meals. We don't even have time to finish our food, our officers yell at us to finish as quickly as possible. Additionally, we have to clean our riffles ourselves and when the trenches get drained in water us soldiers have to clean it up.

Lately our officers told us that American's made chars that would allow us to trespass their trenches. Therefore, I think we will probably win the war :) well hopefully. Otherwise, they made other guns that would allow us to shoot farther in less time. It would also allow us to shot precisely. We usually use handguns, and grenades. These are very useful because not only do they explode and release a harmful gas but they also explode releasing metal pieces all over the soldiers. Yes it is inhuman, but it is the only way for us to survive.

They also made planes, those are kind of useful considering the fact that they can't pull out too heavy things but they still help us in hard times. Finally I'd like to talk about the land some friends and I discovered. We decided not to flee and attack the enemies, one bomb and one grenade then we ran back to our trenches. We killed many men. I wouldn't say I am proud of myself but we do have to keep ourselves alive.

Hope to write to you soon, if i don't die that is !

With love, Craig Thompson