Fear the War
By: Rachel Stearns
Uselessness
They say
That somehow the world will eventually climb
out of darkness
And the endless suffering that soldiers in war face
Will end
We have a choice.
We can think and fear the worst
Some of us do
But we choose to think about better things
How the sun warms everything as it touches fields of flowers
and grows seeds into plants
How the snow folds on fields
That is only what people think
Oh the glories of War,
we tell our children
When they grow old, they will know
That the world is much a cold place
And the war will never end
But there is always hope
And that is why we still fight
Dear Anna, Christmas Day, 1914
Yet, the reason I could not sleep is because it is Christmas morning. You would be surprised how many Christmas songs have been sung on christmas eve. When you are at home singing carols on the streets of London, I am fighting on the battlefields of France! It was a good time yesterday when we could all take a short break for the moment from fighting in war to sing American songs. My favorite is We Wish You A Merry Christmas
As I have wrote before fighting has not been heavy. But, the very first battle of war has left so many dead. My best friend William died a couple days ago and he is missed among my regime.
We have received the first real freeze. Chilled to the bone some nights sleeping in the doug out wishing I could have a warm cup of tea or something. It started to snow last night and all the men danced with joy as it probably reminded them of home.
But just yesterday morning something incredible happened. I had been restin in my cot when one of the other soldiers came to me and shook me and said, "wake up, wake up. Look what the Germans are doing!"
We ran together to the trench and I peered above the sandbags. All along the German line there were little pale yellow lights.
Christmas Trees. And the Germans were singing. But I didn't understand. The Germans were supposed to hate us?