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war was all over in the trenches. but better yet bodies where all over the ground. walking through the dugouts was a chore in itself. lice is a big problems and with the extreme heat the eggs hatch quicker and they don't come out of the clothing which makes them stay longer. the rats are eating the dead bodies and it is disgusting. the rats are probably 3 times the size then at home. everyone is afraid of the brown rats more and even try to 🤬 them at the sight with whatever they had closest to them. the tanks are powerful that bullets cant go through but the opposing side copied the idea they destroyed tanks at war and made there own but more stronger.

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The smell in the trenches have gotten so bad that me and my comrades could barely handle it. We're always busy doing assignments and tasks and we're busy with personal matters when we have time and if everything is finished we might be able to get a few minutes of sleep before we get assigned a new task. Death in the trenches was a constant

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Life in the Western Front is awful. The horrors of all the death is so haunting. The death is all around you and is a constant companion. There ways so many ways a mans life could be taken. Death could come at random and even in silence. Boredom is one of my fiercest enemies I have to go up against. Some men tell stories of what life was like before all of this. some tell about wars they're grandfathers fought in. some of us play cards and some try and steal as much sleep as we can. Nothing is more gut wrenching then preparing to go over the top into no mans land. It was a maze of dead bodies, barbed wire, and debris in a twisted landscape. Everyone dreaded going into it. On the other side of the of the line was the devastating Maschinengewhr. The guns were automatic and had a very high rate of fire. When the whistles went off we went over the top and we went up against the American guns and my friend Austin was mowed down. Life here is miserable and I miss my family so much that now the thought of death scares me more than ever. I hope for a small leg wound and a cart ride all the way back to Berlin!

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This life is something that you can't prepare for. There are rats as big as cats , running around and eating carcasses' eyeballs. This is the most inhumane experience a human can go through. Rats aren't even useful, because they are contagious with many diseases. An plus, they expect us to do "chores", how can you expect for a group of men to do chores when everything around us is falling apart and dirty. This is ludicrous. Even worse the conditions they want us to go through from the lice to trench fever I don't know what's worse. The lice using us like nest, making us shave our heads or me being unable to keep my feet the slightest bit dry, to the point where I'm getting trench foot. The new modernized weapons is just the cherry on top. The grenades where so powerful , that they took out chunks of my fellow men, so sad.

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Dear Ms. Preissler,, The war here in Belgium is a disaster. I spend most of my day and maybe the night in the Trenches. There is a death area for many men on the first day in trenches as a consequence of precisely aimed the sniper's bullet. It came out of a rifle. Rife is fire arm that can shoot people quickly. It has been one third of the Allied casualties on the Western Front. Lice were a never-ending problem, to itch unceasingly, lice eggs. The body heat generated would cause the eggs to hatch sometime. Lice did cause us to itch. The smell of the dead is worst than Rotting garbage and bathrooms would overflow and it would make it worse. Sincerely, B. Keating

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I hate life in the trenches the smell of everyone's musty clothes and fungus filled boots. what makes it worst is the rats! they're terrible they 🤬 everywhere and eat not only are rations but the corpses of the dead men who die everyday just to add on to there food supply. the rain ties everything together the rooms where we sleep are full of mold, the rain soaks the men's boots and it washes all the rat dung into the bunkers. we've lost 3 pits to the rain and water they are fully emerged we are losing more and more sleeping quarters everyday. we also face the threat of the central powers flame throwers if they make it 10 feet from the trench and we are all dead the fire would spread through the trench and if it made it to the fuel reserve all 5,000 men in this sector would die in seconds.

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The rats are horrible. They are spreading infections and contaminating the food. These rats are infesting trenches by millions. Their population is expanding fast because of rats being able to produce up to 900 offspring in 1 year which concerns me.
The smell of the thousands rotting carcasses from battle are extremely horrific and I cant take the stench any longer. The feet are generally accepted to give off the worst odor. The smell of 200,000 men that have been killed is nothing I want to smell again. Death was a constant companion to those serving in the line . Many men died on their first day in the trenches as a consequence of a precisely aimed sniper's bullet. The daily death in the trenches caused enemy injuries and disease.
Poison gas could 🤬 mass groups of the enemy and was very effective. This was used first by the Germans as an effective terror weapon.

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I have never endured something so grotesque and painstaking In my lifetime. Everyday I stay still for hours upon hours knowing I'm being watched by snipers and look-outs. I am writing this exhausted. Not only do I live my days in constant fear of dying I get to live my days with rats. Some rats are the size of cats, it is absolutely frightening. The brown ones feast on the dead, it makes me sick just thinking of it. Finally to add to this amazing scenario, I see dirty frogs in the trenches all the time and I have lice that won't go away. No matter what I do the lice is still on my scalp, I am planning to shave my head soon because I cannot take much more of the itching. I work with the machine gun which is a big risk on my part. I've killed multiple men which in my mind makes me a target for others to 🤬. When the machine gun overheats (which is quite often) we have water ready to cool it down but it sometimes doesn't work, and as you can imagine it is very frustrating to my fellow machine gun helpers and me.

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All wars are terrible, but this war is unbelievable. The most terrible things of being in this war is the amount of deaths there are daily, the rat infestation, and the amount of frogs, lice, and worse. Death for men serving is a daily thing. One of the most causes of death is the very deadly rifle. These guns have a vast increase in range and improved accuracy. Another terrible thing to have to deal with is the rat infestation. All of the trenches were filled with millions of black and brown rats. These viscous animals spread diseases and contaminate food causing more men to die everyday. Frags and lice made a lot of the men very sick. Men that would get trench fever, from lice, would have to wait twelve weeks, away from the trenches, to heal. The frogs caused the men to have fungal infections. This is not a dream, it is a nightmare. This is not the place you want to be.

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Today sucks, just like every other day I have been here. One of the first reasons I hate it, is because of the daily death. even when we aren't fighting people are still dying because of the shellfire. the second reason it sucks is because when were are trying to sleep they expect us to wake and start fighting I don't feel like doing that 🤬 while I'm tying to sleep. The third reason it sucks is because the smell it smelled foul

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Life in the trenches is turning out to be horrible. So many people are dying every day in the line even when there was no battle. The constant shellfire directed by the enemy brings random death in busy sectors, whether the people are just lounging in a trench or just lying in a dug out, there is death every where. The amount of rats is unbelievable. They are infesting the trenches. there was so many rats that you would be surprised if u didn't see one every hour. There seems to be two major types of rats, black rats, and brown rats. Both kinds are disgusting. I swear some of these rats seem to be the size of cats, the rats even crawl across our faces in the dark. We try to get rid of the rats by shooting at them and beating them with clubs until they die, but so far it looks like it's not working. But almost nothing is worse than the smell in this place, thousands of rotting dead bodies sit around here which makes the smell so bad that I cant take it

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Ever since me and my platoon have stepped foot in these cursed trenches, the rats , boredom and retched smell has made me want to end it all. The rats numbers are in the millions and continue to increase. They feast on the remains of my fallen comrades and the scurry across our faces while we sleep. We try to shoot at them, club them, and stab them with bayonets but they just don't stop coming. In the day time, me and my troops are under constant watch by enemy snipers and enemy look outs. I have not much leisure time until night, where I still lay awake at night worried of an attack by enemy forces. I  lay awake at night due to the horrific smells that linger in the trenches. These stench's come from old, rotting carcasses and latrines running over with human waste. However I'm starting to get used to the smell due to my over welcomed stay here in the trenches. The only thing that makes me feel alive is my Flamethrower which I have grown to like very much. It's a great weapon for trench warfare, however I'm not very effective from far away so I am no help to my fellow troops until we can advance into enemy territory.

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I've come to see many things living in the trenches. Down here we live in constant fear of death and disease. Rats are everywhere in the trenches, feasting on the remains of our fallen comrades. They've brought nothing but fear to the only part we can feel safe. The rats grow to ridiculous sizes, so much so that you could compare them to that of a common house cat. We have tried to take them out by clubbing them, even shooting them. Though, they never seem to die. Lice and frogs also crowd the trenches, bringing more and more disease. The frogs hide in moisture soaked areas, infecting our men from the feet. We've had to amputate many of their feet from the infection the frogs bring. Lice infects our hair and our clothes. Like many of my comrades, I have shaven my hair to prevent lice from burying themselves there, yet they still find their way into our clothes. The itch is a horrible feeling. The diseases these animals have brought have caused countless men to die. Bodies pile and the smell never goes away, always lingering in the air. We cannot find the time to even bathe, some of us have gone weeks without it. The smell of corpses and our unclean bodies just keeps piling on to the awful things in these trenches. Even though we wear suits to keep the poison gas out of our lungs, we can still smell it. The gas has kept our enemies at a safe distance from us, luckily. However, some men wear the same suits to disregard the effects of the gas. Some still may make it to the front line, but it is nothing we are not prepared for. The trenches have brought death to people we once knew, but it is also building resilience in us. Though, that does not erase the longing I feel for my home and my family.

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Here in the trenches, death and despair are two of the only constants day to day.  Even outside of the times of fighting, it seems the 🤬 himself visits us. The stench here is almost unbearable. Overflowing latrines are some of the worst offenders, but the stench of rotting soldiers is almost as unholy. We have to stay in these awful trenches for almost impossibly long stretches of time, thanks to No Man's Land. It's this stretch of land, sometimes no longer than a couple men are tall, between us and the enemy. The stalemates seem to never end, forcing us to fight for minuscule stretches of land in return for large amount of men, time, and resources, not to mention our sanity. Not helping my sanity is the fact that when I'm not on the front lines or attending to some other task, I only get to sleep for a measly amount of time, maybe a few minutes on average. I wish I could come home and sleep in my comfy bed, but my country expects and demands my service, so how can I say no? The lack of sleep doesn't help my alertness, which is important if you're in my position. I am a machine gunner, which is one of the greatest sources of fire on the battlefield, giving it one of the greatest potentials for death. What that means for me, however, is that I am a high priority target for enemy snipers and riflemen. It's hard to focus on stopping enemy pushes when you spend your every moment of pulling the trigger worrying about your head separating from your shoulders

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Life as solider in ww1 was awful death was a constant I would see men drop left and right it became a norm for me . hearing people being buried alive and the smell was just unbearable but you just have to get use to it . The Rat infestation was crazy they were poring out of every nook and crany my friend will would shout them for fun because he love the ne rifles that we got but blood would go every where. I would see die rat body's every where rat blood and human blood was mix together. C. Alfaro

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I originally that I was dreaming. After being given the chance to defend my country I thought the worst thing I'll go through is killing someone. But I was wrong. On day one of entering those "trenches" I had the worst unimaginable stench meet me and I thought I walked down the wrong trench but they reassured me that these were the main crossroads. I just couldn't put my finger on the scent from either a rotting corpse or some stagnant mud. Nonetheless I thought that was the worse. After all to my surprise there were animals in the trenches too. From what first appeared as a cat turned out to be, A BIG BROWN RAT! I might have asked for a grenade to be thrown down my sector then to bear the other pests. A grenade would not only last for maybe a second but it also endanger the thrower while these god forsaken vermin live in our clothes and bite at our sculpts. Lice and rats were causing our trenches to become the breeding pit of disaster. Me and most of my fellow soldiers got something a doctor would call "trench foot", they say it's from a fungal infection but I know it was those rats. To those who read this don't sign up for trench.

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At least they had rum that would usually distract me from what was happening around me. Sometimes I would be so intoxicated that i had to pay my friend Will to clean my rifle so i wouldn't get in trouble  at inspection. I never want to think of those days again.  C.Alfaro

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This war is brutal but the most brutal part is living in the trenches in the western front. There is the constant fear or death because we witness men dying daily. My Lt. has fallen due to infection of a bullet wound. The doctors thought they had amputated his arm far enough but they didn't and the infection spread to his chest and then last night, the infection finally conquered him. Not only did we lose many of our great Offiziere and fellow Soldaten, I have also been infested with lice. My friend Will, gave them to me sadly. Will has it way worse than me. He has been sick a countless number of times and he has also lost one of his other great friends due to an Ally grenade which blew him to pieces right in front of Will. I do fell bad for him but I have it bad as well. The constant aroma of decay and mold and mildew is unbearable, and I have developed trench foot. I asked my field doctor what I should about this but he could not give me any tips. He was busy with taking care of wounded Soldaten. I don't know what to do anymore. We are constantly being Shot at by the Allie's machine guns and being bombarded with grenades. It is my responsibility to call out when grenades are being thrown at our trenches.

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The war was always constant death because of large shell bursts. The inspection and chores was not worse then death but they were bad because the daily chores they gave us were fixing and repairing the trenches or finding new equipment. Finally the smell was foul, their were rotting carcasses, us men wouldn't be able to bathe for weeks or even months so because of that the odor was because of dried sweat. The new weapons we once thought were good are not that good. Grenades for instance they are easy to throw but it would give the enemy time to throw it back if we threw it to early and although we could secretly hide them in the enemy's trenches it would take 2-6 seconds to explode. So for those reading this the trenches are a terrible place to be at.

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In this war death was a constant companion to those who where on the line of war. Enemy brought random death to people, where also lounging in these trenches and lying in a dugout. There are millions of rates in these trenches. We tried a bunch of different methods like bayoneting by clubbing them too death. These single rats here can produce 900 offspring in a year. The rats problem remained for the duration of the war. Rats were by no means the only source of infection and nuisance here . lice were breed in our solders seams of there clothing. When the clothing was worn the heat from our bodies helped let the lice eggs hatch. I kept finding frogs in the shell wholes covered in water. I also found frogs in the bottom of my trenches. Me and my friends choose to shave our heads to avoid any scourge nits. Trench foot was more of a problem at the start of trench warfare as conditions improved in 1915 it rapidly faded although a trickle of cases continued throughout the war. I drove a tank for the war. These tank where easy to move in bad terrain.

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Life out here in the trenches is worse than I could ever describe through some journal entry or letter. Everyday is a struggle, and everyday survived seems to be just another day closer to our deaths. Two of the men that I shipped out for war with got mowed down just last night, simply because they stuck their heads up at the wrong time, and payed the ultimate price. The amount of times we mount a charge on the German's trenches only to be met by machine gun fire is unreal. It's precise, unrelenting. The only reason I'm still alive is because, as we discovered after we finally took the German's forward trench, was that the barrel of the machine gun melted from the heat of the constant firing. The trench there was no better than the one we just came from. We're sharing a trench with a brigade of the French who have been in fighting since the beginning of the war; they're so used to this stuff that they've developed some kind of immunity to the rats and the diseases they carry, but not us. A lot of us have had to check In with the medics, some have even been rotated out. One rat even chewed a hole in my boot, nearly gnawed on my toe. When I asked for a replacement boot, however, the quartermaster simply laughed, pointed into no man's land and told me to "Go find a pair myself". When we aren't charging the Germans, we're bored out of our minds. We can't make any significant movements until nightfall, for fear of a German taking our heads off with a sniper round. My sleep cycle has been completely skewered, I haven't slept in the night much. I've been nabbing as much sleep as I can. Life out here sucks. I just want to come home.

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War is terrible. The thing that bothers me the most is the trenches. To start, there is a disgusting stench that is coming from many different things starting with the rotting carcasses. Some of these carcasses have been here for weeks just rotting and on top of it all there is many men who haven't showered in days, even weeks. Their feet give off the absolute worst odor. Even though the small may be bad it is even scarier when there's millions of rats. There are two types the brown and black. Though both are frightening the brown, flesh eating rats are the ones to be feared. I have seen some that are the size of a cat. Sometimes I am too afraid to eat because the rats run around all night spreading their diseases and walking all over our faces. I hope that these rats go away by the end of the war even though I am quite sure they will no because they produce so many a year. The last problem about the trenches of the many there are, is the deaths. Every day someone will die, sometimes it's even their first day and the enemies will come out of nowhere to attack. Other than the trenches there is major problems with weapons. I will tell you about one, the flamethrower. Everybody thought they were fascinating until we then figured out how hard they are to use, and they take way too long to start which is a large disadvantage for us all.