THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE BEGAN ON JULY 31ST 1917...

Just Like Me

Skidding feet first,

Caked boots were scraping stones,

Gouging at mud

And channelling through awful debris;

Then downwards over a ledge

And propelling me into a hole

With a thud.

Gripping hands taut.

Stretcher sliding his snapped bones,

Spilling his blood

And scattering him in dreadful chaos-

Then silence, nerves on edge:

From shelling, this frightful hell

Was a flood.

And then I saw them:

Huns, thankfully dead;

Yet neither wore a brush

Upon a square-jawed head.

And neither was a weakling,

Blinking secretive eyes

Behind cartoon spectacles;

For to my surprise

Both of them, conscripts
As far as I could see,

Were my age and my complexion

And might easily have been

Me…

Pete Ray

Just thought of being a new recruit in World War I, bearing a stretcher, skidding like a baseball batter getting to a base, slithering into a shell-hole and spilling an injured man, but noticing two dead German soldiers. 

They were not as depicted in newspapers and propaganda but were actually just like me...

TYPICAL SHELL-HOLES...

PATERNAL GRANDFATHER...

MATERNAL GRANDFATHER...