Things Are Looking Up Journal

Things Are Looking Up, Journal — Alistair


For the first time in months I think things are beginning to look up. Since day one we've been looked in a bloody stalemate with the Turks, neither side willing to budge. It was taking its toll and I began to believe that I would never survive this accursed business. But it seems a new offensive is in the works, and command has a plan to really punch the Turks right where it hurts. Oh if I could only explain the feeling when I saw those ships just off the harbor bringing in fresh troops.

It was right then and there I knew that I was going to survive this conflict. My experiences of the past few months saw me through and I've learned a lot. I know what to do now, I'm not the green lad who just washed up on shore. No, I am a soldier and I am going to do what I can. It's all I can do to keep the troops patched up, but I honestly feel that I am going to live to see home again.

I've already thought about what I'll do. I'll go back to school and put some of the field-medical skills I've learned to use. I'll be the Doctor that my father wanted me to be and everything will be right and well. One day I'll leave this whole damn war behind me and rest peacefully. I won't have to charge up and over the trenches anymore, lie to a dying man that he'll be alright, I won't have to wake up to shells in the night, and I certainly won't have to kill anymore.

Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life, and I've decided. I'm going to make it home, one way or another.

This is the last entry in Pvt. Alistair Lydgate's journal, found with his personal belongings in the aid station

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