Fallen trees littered the once lush forest floor, now reduced to mud and ash by rain and artillery. Bodies yet to be recovered lie all about, their wounds telling the stories of their demise. Skin covered in blisters and lesions, causing mustard gas. Limbless torsos meant howitzer fire. Pierced chests caked in congealed blood meant bayonet charges. Two months into the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the final major battle of World War I, the Americans had grown accustomed to such sights. Lulls in combat afforded them a chance to reflect upon the gruesome realities of war. Dead friends, life-altering injuries, and hastily dug trenches populated more heavily by rats than soldiers. This wasn’t the adventure they had hoped to embark on. Private Martin Treptow
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He set down his rifle, cast aside his helmet, and lit a cigarette. His tall, lanky frame made him an easy target for sniper fire from across no man’s land by day. He spent most of his time this past week hunched behind a machine gun, ready at a moment’s notice to pick off any Germans daring to cross the field of barbed wire and bodies separating the enemies’ trench systems. “Got a light?” a shrill voice asked. Out of the darkness, another soldier approached Martin’s watch. Private Robert Sinclair stood at 5’5” and 115 pounds soaking wet which, since his and Martin’s company arrived in France at the end of September, he almost always was. Like Martin, he was only seventeen. “C’mere.” Martin extended his lighter to the cigarette perched in Robert’s mouth. “I tell you, I used to shriek whenever a rat found a way into the barber shop. Now I use the dead ones to wipe shaving cream off my cheeks,” Martin remarked. “I bet the Huns are eating ‘em with whatever sauerkraut they got left out here.” Both laughed quietly. Laughter wasn’t a common sound in the
He set down his rifle, cast aside his helmet, and lit a cigarette. His tall, lanky frame made him an easy target for sniper fire from across no man’s land by day. He spent most of his time this past week hunched behind a machine gun, ready at a moment’s notice to pick off any Germans daring to cross the field of barbed wire and bodies separating the enemies’ trench systems. “Got a light?” a shrill voice asked. Out of the darkness, another soldier approached Martin’s watch. Private Robert Sinclair stood at 5’5” and 115 pounds soaking wet which, since his and Martin’s company arrived in France at the end of September, he almost always was. Like Martin, he was only seventeen. “C’mere.” Martin extended his lighter to the cigarette perched in Robert’s mouth. “I tell you, I used to shriek whenever a rat found a way into the barber shop. Now I use the dead ones to wipe shaving cream off my cheeks,” Martin remarked. “I bet the Huns are eating ‘em with whatever sauerkraut they got left out here.” Both laughed quietly. Laughter wasn’t a common sound in the