It was early summer 1914 when the war started, and everyone said we would be home by Christmas. I left to fight on the Western Front in October, and I sure as hell was not home Christmas. I was 19 fighting with the 1/5th battalion of the Black Watch.
When Christmas came I found myself hunkered down in the trenches, miserable. It was snowy, cold, and pointless because no one would fight tonight. I stuck my head just above ground to check on the Germans, also burrowing deep in the trenches. I saw soft glowing light, a thin line following the curve of their trench. I stood up in awe, they were candles! Then I heard singing, it was in German but I didn’t know what the words meant. I thought to myself, “Is this real?” I was stunned when guys from my own unit started singing Christmas carols! I was speechless, but soon joined in the celebration. Christmas greetings were even being shouted across no-man’s land, as if we were not in the middle of a bloody battle.
As the unbelievable night went on, continuing the “pause on fighting” a few German soldiers made their way over to our side. While the exchange was peaceful, it was also tense. What is to stop these enemy soldiers from turning on us at any time? Well, ‘tis the season because we traded little “gifts” and trinkets. I traded tobacco for a pair of clean socks. My buddy traded buttons with a German soldier! He said his son wouldn’t believe this story and I didn’t argue. I could barely believe it myself.
It was not all so happy as that however, and soon we took advantage of this temporary cease-fire to bring our own wounded men back to our side. There we were walking around, not 3 steps from our ‘enemy’ each of us sober in our duties of collecting the dead from the hallowed middle ground.
The truce last through the night and even the next day. No one knew how long we would be safe mingling with those Germans, so when morning came none of us moved. The war picked up again, and continued as if nothing had ever happened. When I think back now I realize how important that truce was, we were not war machines designed to fight through anything. We were just boys trying to survive the winter. Humans taking a break from some ridiculous fight we were not directly related to, humans relating to the sorrows and hardships of war.
These days, I don’t think anything like that would ever happen again. It saddens me the state of affairs this world is in today. People told me that I fought in “the war to end all wars,” but how can they say this with so many wars and people fighting every day? And now children, young children, are being taken from their families and forced to fight like men. At 19 I saw many things I thought I would never see again, but these boys are 8,9, maybe 10 years old witnessing and being brainwashed to participate in nightmares I couldn’t dream of. I fought my war, but I was lucky enough to live my life after. I hope the young people today are as lucky I was to experience life after destruction.
-Alfred Anderson
I thought this chapter was interesting and loved reading it because I have always had a fascination with this century and World War II especially. My grandmother is 94 and was born in 1916, in the middle of World War 1. I have often tried to imagine life through her eyes, the wars, the technological advances, the social trends, all the changes she has witnessed. Her brother was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked early Sunday morning on December 7, 1941. One of my favorite things is talking to her about the way life used to be. I ask her what it was like during the Great Depression, WWII, and other historical events during history as I have learned about them throughout school. She told me her father was one of the lucky ones because he kept his job during the Great Depression, but she remembers men in business suits selling apples on the corner. Her family would buy from them to help them out, she said it was their duty, the least they could do.
The detail of this chapter is a little disappointing but completely understandable because they cover SO many events that it would be hard to elaborate without making the chapter as long as the book. I am just realizing now that the other chapters must be the same, that each story must go into great detail and intimacy but this book is just a summary of them. I know the most about this chapter of history, and that is why I am aware of the great deal of information that was not included but I don’t know as much about the earlier history of the world, which is why it didn’t occur to me, I think.
At the same time, I think most people will argue that from 1900-2000 the world experienced a tremendous amount of change, probably more so during this time than another other century. The style of warfare changed dramatically- when from face to face combat with swords and some guns to being completely removed, dropping bombs and fighting with the help video surveillance. Cars, television, computers, cell phones, things we take for granted today was either non-existent or much more primitive at the beginning of the century, and medical advances are in a league of their own! I don’t think there is another era where the world has changed so much.
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