I dont know if this exactly belongs here, but … my grandfather served in WW1, at Gallipoli then at Ypres / Passchendael: he retired from his job the year I was born, and helped my parents buy their house, lived with them and helped raise my brother and I.
One of the things he tried to teach us, was how horrible war was, relating many ghastly stories to us of his experiences (and many wonderful ones of his time wandering the world, he was born in Ireland and had the Irish storytelling thing).
One tale he told me, that really stuck, was his experiences in 1918 - at the end of January, he was the only man still in his platoon (of 40-ish) who had been in the platoon at the start of January - everyone else had been killed, wounded, sent home sick, or … missing, in that wonderful word.
At the end of February, he was the only man still in his platoon who had been in the platoon at the start of February.
At the end of March, he was the only man still in his platoon who had been in the platoon at the start of March.
In April, he took a blighty wound (had a toe shot off … possibly by his own action).
50 years later, he still couldn’t talk about this without breaking down weeping. He shipped back to New Zealand with a shipful of shattered soldiers, the poisoned, the maddened, the crushed and chewed up, and each time he talked about this part of his life, he would go through all the men he knew, and vividly described their suffering.
(he also did a bunk from the ship in Cairo, and met up with a girl he’d met before the war, but thats a whole other story).
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