The book excerpt Eye Deep in Hell, Trench Warfare in World War I is an amazingly written account of the tragedies that occurred during this "war to end all wars." It provides an in-depth description of the heroic soldiers' everyday lives and of the horrors they witnessed and/or endured. These horrors range anywhere from trench foot to mud to cold winters to rats, lice, and much more. Although many citizens felt aware of the catastrophes in Europe, the average citizen could not possibly imagine what these men had to go through in the true sense of the words.
I truly enjoyed reading the excerpts because they opened my eyes to the true nature of the suffering that happened in the war. First of all, I was not aware that trench foot was such an issue. I did not even truly know what it was in fact. So many men had toes amputated because of it! When I initially pictured the war, I pictured more deaths from cold weather and fighting than I did from wet feet. Second of all, I did not know that the soldiers went to such an extent just to get rid of lice. I simply figured that they dealt with it just as much as they did any other bothersome conditions. Third of all, the "mud issue" truly shocked me. Who would have ever thought that men could essentially be swallowed by muck?
In conclusion, I feel that the reading was necessary to expand my knowledge of conditions during World War I. Many Americans did not know of the rats and the disease, of the stench and of the mud. These excerpts definitely "humanized" the situation and made it easy for me to picture the horrible conditions. Fighting was not the only issue that transformed the war into a living hell, and the soldiers relearned that brutal lesson each and every day.
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