Today’s header image was created by James Harris at Unsplash
A bit of a break from the norm here folks.
Lest We Forget
Take a moment to think about this, really try to visualise it if you can:
It’s winter, you’re hundreds of miles away from home and covered in mud. It’s cold, wet and stinks of death. The only thing you’ve been able to find to eat were dead rats, you haven’t thought about what killed them, just tried to eat as much of them that you can hold down. You’ve had dysentery for days now, but there are no toilets anywhere in this trench and you haven’t had anything good to drink in hours.
You’re shaking. Partly because of dehydration, partly because of malnutrition, most mostly because you’ve just been told that you’ll be going over the top and taking the slow march to your death in a few minutes. The ladders are already up and there’s a sudden hush across the entire trench. Even the enemy artillery has stopped, why waste ammunition.
A light susurration, then the whistle is blown.
You start your climb up the ladder. A sudden explosion of light, sound and activity as the shelling begins anew. Smith, over on your right starts to say something encouraging about how he’ll see you in Berlin but is abruptly silenced as a shell hits him and he becomes so much red mist.
You look out into No Man’s Land and no thoughts come. A few steps into your marching, you get hit in the chest by a sniper. As you lay, gasping for air, staring at the sky, you see your family flash before your eyes.
“Thank goodness for the cold,” you think, “at least I can’t feel the pain.”
Silently, you pass away gasping for air alone, covered in mud, blood and God knows what else, having not eaten properly in days.
THAT is why we can complain about our daily issues.
About how the new five pound notes have a trace amount of animal product in them, or how the shop has run out of the product that you wanted to buy. Or how the bus being slightly late is the worst thing that could have ever happened to you.
Take a moment and truly think about what THEY went through vs what you are going through.
I think that’s all I really need to say about that.
