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“For a young man who had a long and worthwhile future awaiting him, it was not easy to expect death almost daily. However, after awhile I got used to the idea of dying young. Strangely, it had a sort of soothing effect and prevented me from worrying too much. Because of this I gradually lost the terrible fear of being wounded or killed.”

-originally German war-volunteer Reinhold Spengler

***

We'd become so regularly affronted with the matter of death that we honed in on the comfort that it would happen anyway: to rid of anxiety and itching worries. Simple as that. I however did over-exaggerate the truth here. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't terrified despite this conclusion I had drawn to. War was scary no matter how you decide to succumb to it. There would always someone you'd miss if you died. Or the future you want to embark. I am a human being who tries to see the good side of things and it seemed as though in this situation, it were death. It had never been easy.

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Who were you before the war, Oliver Harrison Ladlow?

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Who were you before the war, Oliver Harrison Ladlow?

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Representation of a positive relationship

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Representation of a positive relationship

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Charles would always tell me that life was more than fair and I would always ask him to prove it. He would then take out a coin and flip it. It would more often than not land on the Queen's heads. After that he would say:

You either make it or you don't.

I took that coin with me because Charles was right. In terms of this war anyway. You either make it or not. Before we akways went on those wracking missions, I always flipped the coin. I don't know why I feel the exact opposite of discouragement when I do it but I feel Father's presence lingering with a hand on my shoulder whenever I toss. I knew that I'd either make it or Charles would receive his stolen coin back.

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Representation of himself and a positive relationship

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Representation of himself and a positive relationship

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My wallet. I kept an old rusty nail in there. I would always run to it for comfort whenever my cigarettes were of no help in the war or when someone I knew never came back to give their goodbyes. It made me angry that I didn't know if I would die in the next second or in the next week, resulting in making me itchy with restlessness and with a subtle attitude of recklessness.

I took the nail from a broken down cultivator hidden in our run down shack. I had been as irresponsible as ever at the age of 10 when I decided to jump unto an isolated cultivator. The horses had seemed calm then but the calmness must have been provoked as soon as I jumped on. The horses raced as did my heart. The cultivator, being rusty had been isolated by Charles for a reason and I stupidly rode on the demeaning object. It came apart and I was dragged across a bed of loose nails. I gained a scar on my scalp, thigh and left leg for thus reason.

I took it because I was reminded that I had seen through a moment in my life where I had been dragged through a bed of pain but still managed to live: it gave me a sense of being unbreakable.

I knew that in the hostile environment of war, I'd need as much confidence I could muster and so I took it with me. As an emblem of perseverance and home.

A home where I wouldn't have to always cower from raining shells and ammunition. A home where I could envision a tomorrow with life. A home I would go to where war does not rage and spit fire but instead exudes warmth.

Unfortunately, I lost it in war and only have this ragged wallet to give to my parents.

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That's me in the middle- told you I was good-looking. The bloke on the left is Frederic Milne. I hardly knew him but he was very close to my brother Albert, the one on the right. As soon as this picture was taken, I really looked after it. Why? Because I disliked my brother. He was the reason why I went to war.

I realised that If I had a picture of him I'd be able to keep that passion I had when I first enlisted though I'd hate to admit that it stifled as soon as the first bomb was delivered upon my arrival. The smirk hidden in his eyes was however enough to keep me going forward with the war. We were in the same unit and battalion but since he'd been in a higher rank than I had been, we never talked. There was nothing hence to talk about.

I wanted my own land. I knew more than anyone that my brother would have gotten the farm, and I wanted to be my own boss so I enlisted, convinced that with enough hope and good fighting, I'd make it out alive, ready to have my own family. I'd heard that soldiers were given land upon return from war. Oh, how wrong I was.

Charles never really wanted me to enlist and I enlisted because he didn't want me to. He needed a hand with the farm and he sent out my brother to be a man willingly whilst I was stuck at home, tending land that would never be mine.

But guess what? Albert, who scarcely made it out alive of the war, after initiating an ideal future comprising of beautiful children and a beautiful wife, died at the wheels of a tractor.

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They gave me two medals about 6 months after I died on the 10th of January in 1917. I was officially killed in action 2 days later. I hadn't been able to last a year and it would seem as though the cigarettes did little to protect me in any feeble way possible. The British War Medal and the Victory Medal replaced my idea of a family and a well furnished future. At least I died fighting for the Empire in a war I loathed.

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Before I left for war,Charles gave me a wrist watch specially crafted for me - he had finally succumbed to the fact that I was going to war. He told me the leather texture would surely remind me of home and that the constant ticking of its arms would tell me that no stretch of time could take away their love for my brother Albert and I.

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It was no secret that I had been a dashing young bloke but I had been so intrigued by the farming business that I rarely did try to find myself a female companion. I knew that I'd need a family as soon as I came back to Victoria from the war to assure my societal and familial status. So without telling anyone, I visited the closest blacksmith and asked him to furnish the ring you see below. It became an important promise and reason for me to come out of the war alive. It was a very pleasing reason as well. War tampers with future plans a lot.

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I was only 13. Mother had come from the bakery in town and she found me in the barn, weeping into the prickly hay. I blubbered to her what happened to me just as soon as I looked at her face. Mother was a very soft woman with equally soft facial features and I really loved her. Poor Mother.

I was bullied ruthlessly by a gang of boys with orange tans and they picked on me due to my socio-economic background - it had not been a secret that my family was not terribly rich but we lived healthily producing wheat and cotton. I had been angry for not being able to muster up the physical strength to stand up to them.

Beautiful Mother, she gave me this pencil and told me to focus on my studies to make these bullies kiss the ground I would walk on in t he future. She told me not to pierce people with the pencil but to use it in a way that would make them pay for their indecencies: study.

I really needed a part of her with me so I integrated her memory with my intolerable present as seen below with the input of the pencil in the shell of a bullet. I also wrote in my writing pad I took with me to war with this pencil.

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I was a peaceful young man, though I did have a very strong mental podium, being groomed in a farm and all. However, war was enough to bring the strongest men down to tethers and the item below stored what gave me some form of sanity and reprieve to gather my own thoughts over the angry yelling of bullets and shells. I'll be honest, I had always looked down upon smoking when Charles - my father- did it, but I forever thank him for the practise he gave me as I managed not to choke the first time I puffed from one.

Unfortunately, if the war hadn't damaged my future then the smoking would have as I had so frequently practised it I had been admitted to the hospital more than once for Bronchitis.

I got scared a lot more without my cigarettes and old rusty nail. Why? Because without them I was forced to deal with the harsh realities of war and I hated it. That was when I felt death dig into my skin and my nose became much more sensitive to the sharp stench of rotting bodies. I normally had the cigarette smoke smothering it down, if not a lot, then a little bit for tolerance.