Lest We Forget

For the first two weeks back at school Room 18 were considering ANZAC day and what it means to us - as individuals and as New Zealanders.

We had a remembrance ceremony as a whole school, we learned about the history of ANZAC day (both the distant and recent history) and we inquired into the characteristics of a good soldier and whether these characteristics would be useful to us today and into the future.

Some students in class were able to share their family histories with us or tell us about soldiers in their family that work as peacekeepers.

The students had opportunity to imagine life in the trenches for a World War 1 soldier. They examined the reasons that young men, not that much older than many in our class, would choose to go to war.

From the understanding we gained, students wrote letters from the perspective of a soldier:

France

20 november

1917

dear eli,

Soldier life is not as I expected. These trenches are bloody crammed and our food is poor quality. Some of the other soldiers are making grenades out of their empty jam tins, I gotta say they’re pretty creative. The sound of gunfire keeps ringing in my ears even though the battlefield is silent.

Most of the soldiers are infected with horrible worms and trench foot. Some of these victims have one of their body parts amputated. It’s very depressing to see soldiers die almost 24/7, some are so depressed they’ve lost the will to live. 

Anyway love you and see you soon, hopefully.

Yours sincerely,

Antonio (Malama)

France

23 October 1915

Letter 39

Dear Torin and Kay,

It’s been so long since I have last seen both of you. Life in the trench is hard, its cold, and its wet. It gets muddy when it rains a lot. It is cramped in the trench and it smells a lot like B.O. I’m always thinking of home and I just cant wait to come back. 

It is very unhygienic in the trench. Mostly everybody has head lice, body lice, ticks, and flies are always hanging around us. Massive rats nibble on the dead bodies, some the size of cats.

I only get a short amount of sleep and a little amount of food and I get thirsty a lot. The guns and the uniform are very heavy. 

I have some devastating news. Just a few days ago David was killed in action I hope Aunty is taking his death well. It was very depressing to watch him die but things like this happen in life. Well anyway I have to go now I’ll write back to you soon. Love you heaps.

Yours Sincerely

Jimmy Baker (Christen)