the lonely soldier | Teen Ink

the lonely soldier

December 29, 2013
By Anonymous

July 2, 1914. Dear diary, today is the 2nd of July and I am about to go head downtown with some of my friends. Man I’m living the life. I have a job and amazing friends. Today is going to be a good day.
July 28, 1914. Dear diary, I thought I was living the life until I found out today that WWI had began and I got draft papers saying I was being drafted to fight for the Allied Powers over in Germany. What am I going to do? I’m only 17. How am I even old enough to fight in a World War? Oh my God. I have no idea what to do. I’m just supposed to up and leave my job and friends to fight in a war that I didn’t even know was going on? I guess I should have known since there was extreme hostility between some countries. But how am I going to survive over there? I fly out tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. I will write to you once I arrive in Germany. May god help me.

July 31, 1914. Dear diary, my plane was intercepted by the enemy and we have crash landed somewhere in Germany. It is nothing like you would have imagined. The buildings look of decayed matter just sitting there to rot like an uneaten banana. They are destroyed. Ashes fill the sky and suffocate me. There are bodies laying on the streets as if the streets were a cemetery. Nicely laid in lines of four or five. Women, children, men, everyone. They looked like factory lines. Neatly piled. I don’t know how I’m going to survive this. Just looking around me makes me want to die. I already am dead. I miss my home. If it wasn’t for the pile of rubble I am hiding under, I would be dead.
December 29, 1914 Dear diary, Today is the last day that I will be able to write to you. I am pinned down inside of a trench. I have run out of paper and am sitting here by myself. Everyone is dead. Man do I wish that I had more paper to write on. My entire squadron has been killed off and I am the only one left. I am sitting here, lonely, with no one to talk to or to keep me company. I have no way of getting home. There are soldiers looking for me. Hunting me. They have dogs! They are hunting me with dogs. I will just wait here and hope that someone comes to save me. I fear the final hours of my life are close.

December 17, 1916. Dear diary, well it’s been a few years since I’ve wrote to you, sorry but I’ve been avoiding the enemy lines, they just seem to find me. I’ve barely been able to keep myself alive. My squadron is made of random soldiers lost like me and over half of them come up missing or is known to be dead every week. I am badly injured. I recently took a knife to my back while I was taking shelter in what I thought was an abandoned village. Finally the feeling of relief had come over me when I was recovering. But now, it’s back to the feeling of emptiness. Loneliness is more like it. I feel like not even getting close to anyone in my squadron because in five minutes they could be dead. What am I to do? I’ve been sitting here for over two years without a friend to talk to, confide in, or even keep me company. Loneliness will be the death of me I swear. I feel suicide could free me.

Dear diary, today will be the last day that I can write to you. I have officially ran out of paper, and it is day ten of no food or water. I barely have any strength to even write this last entry. I will not make it out, to my family back home, mom and dad. I love you.
In This entry, I wrote journal entries from the perspective of a young soldier who was drafted to war. After arriving in a horrible fashion, he became shell-shocked and was isolated from humanity. He sought out loneliness even though it surrounded him, ultimately consuming him. It made him believe there was no point to life, he was so lonely, why get use to people. It will only let him down again. People become this corrupt by person vs. nature clashing with person vs. self ideologies. The mind is corruptible.


The author's comments:
chicken noodle soup is good

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on Jan. 4 2014 at 8:51 pm
ChasityTaylor SILVER, Denham Springs, Louisiana
7 articles 0 photos 34 comments

Favorite Quote:
"In terms of noodles, all bets on Trump."- my very strange friends

This is amazing! It's very well written, and you're right the mind is corruptible.