Ginger's US History Blog: "The Stretcher Bearer" Poem

I read, The Stretcher Bearer, which is a poem written by Thomas Albert Crawford who was a Pte. (Private) in the 15th DLI (Durham Light Infantry) which was apart of the British Army, he was injured on Jult 1, 1916 and he died in 1980. I found the poem interesting because how good the poem is as just a poem, and then adding on the emotion behind it. While I understood that it was very common for soldiers to write poems I wasn't expecting a poem as such quality. The poem really expresses the futility of trying to escape the horrors and pains of war, as well as touching on the humanity of the war expressing just how devestating it was. It displays the exact opposite of how people saw war at the start of it, where they were celebrating that they were going to war, but rather at the time the poem is written just how badly it effected people. It describes how there was rarely a moment where there wasn't any fighting and/or gun shots. I found it very revealing to just how the soldiers felt emotionally and physically at that point in the war which I wasn't prepared for.