/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10394460]

To whom and what would you write in a situation like this?

[Anonymous No.10394468]

>tfw i sincerely dont know

[Anonymous No.10394481]

If I, a stranger, were to say anything to them, it'd come off as hopelessly optimistic or naive to them. For the people at the front, the best is the support of their family as well as the knowledge of their safety and happiness.

[Anonymous No.10394527]

Dear mom,
Send more porn and Copenhagen.
Love,
Your son

[Anonymous No.10394528]

>>10394460
If it's a letter to home, you lie like an asshole and tell Mama how the Mess Seargent somehow scrounged up turkeys for Christmas dinner and that you spend most of your days just observing the enemy lines and being bored. You tell them about Miles and his wacky family stories, leaving out the part about Miles getting his head blown off two days before, and tell Mama that she'll meet him when you all come home and sit down to dinner together. You tell her how you've raved about her famous chicken pie and she'll have to make a lot of it because your buddies eat like a train of horses, also leaving out the part where the only meat you've eaten in a week was when you managed to bayonet a rat running through your trench. You sign off with some vague military term that she won't understand, and tell her you think this will all be over very soon and you can't wait to come home and tell everyone how beautiful the country you're in is.

You'll hastily fold the letter and hand it to the Battalion runner who's collecting them. The warning whistle will sound, and you'll stack up with everyone else on the shallow trench step, bayonets fixed. Listening to the friendly shells screech overhead, adrenaline and terror will surge through your veins and you'll tap your fingers on the body of your rifle, praying that the shells go on forever while simultaneously wishing they'd stop so you could get it over with. You won't recognize that silence has fallen over the field until the attack whistle sounds, and then you and your comrades will pour over the top, once more into the breech.

[Anonymous No.10394773]

>>10394528

damn.

[Anonymous No.10394781]

Dearie sweetums Trumpykin,

You lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. #TheResistance grows stronger every day. You cannot hope to stand against our grassroots media support. Step down now or you will be removed. #ThisPussyGrabsBack #CatPerson

t. verified account of the Harvey Weinstein Holocaust Remembrance Fund

[Anonymous No.10394784]

>>10394781
You've become mentally ill from browsing this site. Stop shitting up every thread

>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.10394789]

[Anonymous No.10394791]

>>10394528
Fuck.

[Anonymous No.10394795]

buy chainlink

[Anonymous No.10394874]

>>10394781
At least try to be funny.

[Anonymous No.10394992]

>>10394460

Dear Kaiser Wilhelm
you's a muthafucker
thanks for the war biotch

jamal

[Anonymous No.10394994]

I’d write to my mammy and tell it’s not so bad.

[Anonymous No.10395039]

>>10394528

Beautiful. Read it three times.

[Anonymous No.10395060]

Dear Frederick,

Thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a US Marine who was born to kill, whereas clearly you seem to have mistaken me for some sort of wine sipping, communist dick suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree hugging bi-sexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole, Freddy. War is the mother-fucking answer.

Corporal Ray Person

[Anonymous No.10395083]

>>10395060
>fat virgin detected

[Anonymous No.10395201]

>>10395083
https://youtu.be/IK2rUVKKuKI

[Anonymous No.10395327]

>>10394460
To my mother. Try to assure her that I was o.k., no doubt.

[Anonymous No.10395335]

To my lawyer, naming my ex as executor of my vast estate

[Anonymous No.10395338]

>>10394460
Well then I'd probably have something worthy to write about and people to correspond meaningfully with, for lack of television and internet.

[Anonymous No.10395371]

>>10394460
To my country: "The Jews are Gods chosen people and I will gladly lay down my life to defend their material interests. Fuck white people and fuck drumpf."

[Anonymous No.10395375]

>>10395371
Can you please fuck off with this boring shit

>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.10395430]

Probably shitposting on the dedicated thread to this conflict on /pol/, reading the memes of my ennemies.
That's the reason why the supreme commander forbidden internet browsing during this conflict tho, in 2031 all ennemy intel is browsing an ancient tibetan image board, looking for geographic locations in webm.

[Anonymous No.10395448]

>>10394528

I hope you realize that what took you maybe five minutes to type out on an Tibetan sand painting forum is better than what some people spend a lifetime trying to put together.

[Anonymous No.10395467]

[Anonymous No.10395474]

I'd probably write to my family asking for news of how things were going at home. The letter I received would let me imagine being back there and not at the front.

[Anonymous No.10395484]

>>10394528
I know this is going to sound edgy but I found this plebeian collection of tropes cringeworthy, not moving. It lacks any real insight - which is obviously because the writer has never actually been in the situation and so would be hard pressed to have any, and this isn't a criticism of him (and it's a good thing that fewer and fewer people know what war is) but it is a criticism of the writing. Even without insight it could have been good, but the recitation of horrors lacks any punch. It reads like an Excel spreadsheet that just happens to be listing bad things that happened, but might just as easily be listing last quarter's sales.

>once more into the breech
Breach*.

A breech is the part of a firearm behind the chamber that holds the cartridge in position. A breach is, quite literally, a breach in the enemy's fortifications.

[Anonymous No.10395489]

>>10395083
This is the face of /lit/ and academics in general. They are so out of touch with the real world that they think that this >>10395060, a literal quote from an actual U.S. Marine who actually went to war, is just an edgy meme, where as this >>10394528, a scrap of doggerel dripping in sentiment and drawing on nothing so much as the poster's "experience" of WW1 movies, is the more worthy specimen.

I fucking hate you ivory tower cunts so fucking much.

[Anonymous No.10396910]

>>10395489
Just so you know, most of us that recognise the Generation Kill quote know that the show was based on a real life account (though no idea if the actual RayRay quote is real).

And the
>scrap of doggerel dripping in sentiment and drawing on nothing so much as the poster's "experience" of WW1 movies
post is just some guy condensing All Quiet on the Western Front into a 1k character 4chan post that's just 'Hey I want to protect the innocence of those that care about me', which is a sentiment directly from the chapter where he goes to visit his dying mother. Said book actually being pretty good and pretty emotionally evocative, and also being written by someone who did actually fight in WW1.

But ye we're all faggots who think we're intellectuals and don't know what real life (war) is.

[Anonymous No.10396934]

I'd write to all the women that rejected me. These would be bitter and vengeful letters with poor punctuation.

[Anonymous No.10397011]

>>10395484
Nah you're right. Not being edgy at all. It was cliche as fuck.

[Anonymous No.10397084]

>>10395489
>one anon on 4chan speaks for all academics

[Anonymous No.10397089]

Nobody

[Anonymous No.10397193]

>>10395484
It doesn't sound edgy. I'm obviously not <100 years old so I never have seen the hellscape that was the Somme or Verdun, but I actually have seen combat in both of Burgerland's recent wars, twice in Afghanistan, once in Iraq. Despite what Ron Pearlman might want you to believe, war definitely does change. I've had an indirect fire (mortar) round land ~20 feet away from me, but I've never experienced heavy shelling for weeks at a time, or had to charge a trench line.

Lying to Mom is a time honored military tradition though. I spent 3 weeks in a hospital my first deployment because an IED fucked my head up so bad I went blind in my right eye. I told Mom that I was in Freedomland, a place in the Greenzone that had an open bar, a no-rank policy, a pool and, most importantly, AF females in bathing suits. She didn't even know I'd been hurt until I came home with a Heart. All my buddies did the same thing with their families.

Tropes are tropes for a reason, and you'd be shocked by the amount of war-movie cliches that you see while you're in. It usually just leaves out the really nasty parts, like your squad leader running around slapping people with a detached arm he found after a firefight, or the fact that before you can move a dead soldier you have to take pictures of their liquefied bits and dangling limbs so you can file a report.

I banged that out in about 5 minutes, and just tried to style it after most of the combat memoirs I've read. I'm not here to become an excellent writer, I just like to read.

>breech/breach
I know, I'm a native /k/ poster and my phone actually autocorrects breach to breech.

I appreciate the insight though.

[Anonymous No.10397232]

>>10397193
*>100 years old.

[Anonymous No.10397657]

>>10394460
I recall a moment from a documentary of Gallipoli a Turkish Soldier's last letter to his wife was that he was not optimistic for his outcome of the battle, and he was grateful to God that he was a soldier and that he had met her.
I also recall a commanding officer had told his troops "I am not ordering you to fight, I am ordering you to die. For if we do not stop them here we will not have an empire to return to."
Men are at their most poignant before death, and that is when you can truly judge them.

[Anonymous No.10397709]

Dear boipussy....

[Anonymous No.10397845]

>>10397657
Men at poignant when they are faced with the looming prospect of death.

Men cry and beg and shit themselves while they are dying. I'm not being edgy but don't fool yourself. No one's making glorious speeches after being gutshot. Best you can hope for is that you just scream instead of weeping and begging God to save you.

It's right there in your quote, "We will not have an Empire to return to." Even though the odds are grim, you can still fool yourself into thinking that you'll pull through somehow. But once you feel that searing pain and see your life leaking away under you that sliver of hope is ripped away and you're left with the hard fact that your existence is at it's end. Everyone from soldiers, to old people in the hospital, to terminally ill patients all do the same thing. They fight and claw and scream and weep and die. There's nothing poignant or noble about it.

[Anonymous No.10397911]

>>10395484
Good criticisms. I appreciated the sentiments behind anon's post but found its style/content wanting too. It's 4chan.

>>10397193
Also found this post insightful and enjoyable too. Knowing that all the posts on here are informed by distinct, multifarious lives and reasons enriches them.

>>10397845
I hate to make three replies in one post like a faggot, and my opinion is worth jack shit. You're speaking a definite truth, and I don't have any opposition to its perspective or implications, but people's behaviour and experiences in death are more diverse than you account for, even if it is only a terribly small margin. For some people, there is acceptance. I almost wrote authentic acceptance, but what would I mean by that? It would imply inauthentic acceptance, which maybe exists, but I have no real knowledge to talk about. Since death is mysterious and totally alien, it's impossible to say or give example of what authentic apprehension of it is.

[Anonymous No.10397979]

>>10397911
>style/content wanting
Yeah I didn't put a bunch of effort into it, I was just trying to convey a feeling. Waiting on impending violence is truly one of the worst feelings in the world. I can only compare it to when my daughter was born. They had to do an emergency C-section because the baby's heart kept stopping, and when they pulled her out she was completely blue and limp. The nurse started doing chest compressions and the doctor started intubating her. For an eternity my world became nothing more than watching a 4 inch patch of skin at my daughter's sternum, begging God to make it rise. It took 17 seconds for them to get her to breathe on her own but it felt to me like a lifetime.

That is the only experience I can compare to knowing you're about to be in a fight and just waiting for it to pop off. You see the signs; an empty marketplace at noon, markers on the road, an obvious decoy IED that they know you have to check out placed conveniently in a choke point. Other times there's nothing, you just know. And its fucking awful. Terror and horrible anticipation fills your entire body and you just want to curl up into a ball and hide. When the first bullet snaps by adrenaline, training and outrage take over, and suddenly you're a master of Death and fear no evil because you are the Baddest Motherfucker in the Valley. But that waiting will kill you.

Don't feel bad about making replies man, we're all here to talk. That's my post too by the way, the last one you quoted. After the military I did security at a hospital and saw a lot of death there, almost more than I did in the Army. Death is the great equalizer, it mocks our worldly power and wealth. At the end we're all just sacks of meat not really ready to call it quits. In the 4 years I worked there while I was in school, I saw very few people who were ready, and most of them were terminally ill and had been for a long time. They seemed relieved that they wouldn't have to suffer anymore, that their torture at the hands of whatever malignant body was tearing their bodies apart was finally at an end. One woman felt like she'd won.

I'm not the end all be all expert on death, of course, and don't claim to be. But I have seen people die violently and it's never good unless its instant. I didn't fear dying, I feared bleeding to death in agony.

[Anonymous No.10398430]

>>10397979
Huh, you really never know who you're replying to on here do you? Sounds like you've lead an interesting life anon.

[Anonymous No.10398452]

Wake
23 december 1915

A whole night
thrown near
a massacred
companion
with his mouth
sneering
facing the whole moon
with the congestion
of his hands
penetrating
my silence
I have written
letters full of love

I have never been
so much
attached to life

[Anonymous No.10398498]

>>10394528
>>10397193
Good man. Take care anon.

[Anonymous No.10398502]

>>10394460

My Very Dear Wife:

Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine, O God be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for any country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know, that with my own joys, I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with care and sorrows, when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it, as their only sustenance, to my dear little children, is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country.

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in this hazarding the happiness of those I loved, and I could not find one. A pure love of my country, and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, and "the name of honor, that I love more than I fear death," have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.

[Anonymous No.10398505]

>>10398502
I know I have but few claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

- Sullivan

[Anonymous No.10398514]

>>10397845
That is why he said "when they are faced with the looming prospect of death" not "when they are dying." Obviously no one's going to be composing beautiful prose about the grim reality of war when their legs are blown off and they're lying with their guts spilled out.

[Anonymous No.10398523]

>>10395489
I didn't like it either.

>writing letters moments before going over the top
Not bloody likely.

[Anonymous No.10398574]

>>10397979
If you had written your first post the way you wrote this one it would have been good.
>training and outrage take over, and suddenly you're a master of Death and fear no evil because you are the Baddest Motherfucker in the Valley
That's a great line. Write more stuff like that. I hope your baby's alright now because that sounds scary as fuck.

[Anonymous No.10398589]

>>10398430
It's been alright.
>>10398514
No, I said that. All he said was "when faced with death." I really wasn't trying to be contrary, that's why I put, "looming prospect of death," in as a qualifier for what he was talking about.
>>10398574
She's fat and healthy now, thank you. And I've never really considered writing anything honestly. I don't think the world needs another combat memoir, especially not from some lower enlisted grunt who only ever made E-5. I appreciate the compliment though.

[Anonymous No.10398592]

>>10398498
Oh, and thanks buddy, you too.
>>10398502
>>10398505
This is an actual letter isn't it? I feel like I've read this before.

[Anonymous No.10398814]

>>10398589

OP here.

Not >>>10398574, but I'm glad you shared your writing, your story and insight, and even more so that your daughter is doing fine.

[Anonymous No.10398824]

>>10394460
They wrote poetry to send back to their families and wives. Many of the poems' authors were never identified. World War poetry is actually pretty interesting and upsetting stuff, a lot of it focusing on what they missed about their hometowns, nostalgic memories, or the savagery of the battlefield.

[Anonymous No.10398836]

>>10395335
Subtle, I like it.

[Anonymous No.10398864]

>>10398814
Well that's very kind, thank you. I'm absolutely turning into one of those "LOOK AT MY BABY, SHE'S THE BEST BABY EVER RIGHT? YEAH I KNOW, SHE'S THE BEST BABY THAT EVER BABIED" parents and it's hilarious.

So here, look at my baby.

[Anonymous No.10398897]

>>10395467
Hehe thought of this as well.

>>10398824
Are there collections of this? Any recommendations?

Am Abend tönen die herbstlichen Wälder
von tödlichen Waffen, die goldnen Ebenen
und blauen Seen, darüber die Sonne
düster hinrollt; umfängt die Nacht
sterbende Krieger, die wilde Klage
ihrer zerbrochenen Münder.
Doch stille sammelt im Weidengrund
rotes Gewölk, darin ein zürnender Gott wohnt
das vergoßne Blut sich, mondne Kühle;
alle Straßen münden in schwarze Verwesung.
Unter goldenem Gezweig der Nacht und Sternen
es schwankt der Schwester Schatten durch den schweigenden Hain,
zu grüßen die Geister der Helden, die blutenden Häupter;
und leise tönen im Rohr die dunkeln Flöten des Herbstes.
O stolzere Trauer! ihr ehernen Altäre
die heiße Flamme des Geistes
nährt heute ein gewaltiger Schmerz,
die ungebornen Enkel.

[Anonymous No.10398903]

>>10398502
>>10398505
Holy fuck. I don't care if this is an actual WWI letter or not--if it isn't, it should be--it makes for a much better read than anything else in this thread. I shall keep this.

[Anonymous No.10398911]

>>10395484
>and it's a good thing that fewer and fewer people know what war is
Lost me here.

[Anonymous No.10398926]

>>10398864
WHY?! WHY MUST YOU TORMENT ME SO WITH THESE JEZEBELS?

[Anonymous No.10398989]

>all these amazing and beautiful letters from ww1

Am I just blinded or did people back then write better?

[Anonymous No.10399009]

"". . . I must not allow myself to dwell on the personal - there is no room for it here. Also it is demoralising. But I do not want to die. Not that I mind it for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water. I cannot think of it with even the semblance of equanimity.
My one consolation is the happiness that has been ours. Also my conscience is clear that I have always tried to make life a joy for you. I know at least that if I go you will not want. That is something. But it is the thought that we may be cut off from each other which is so terrible and that our Babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. And I know your life without me would be a dull blank. Yet you must never let it become wholly so. For to you will be left the greatest charge in all the world; the upbringing of our baby. God bless that child, she is the hope of life to me. My darling, au revoir. It may well be that you will only have to read these lines as ones of passing interest. On the other hand, they may well be my last message to you. If they are, know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me.
I pray God I may do my duty, for I know, whatever that may entail, you would not have it otherwise."

>Capt. Charlie May died on July 1, 1916.

[Anonymous No.10399089]

Dear Penelope

I hope our son Telemachus is doing well. It seems this war should be over soon, and Troy seems that it will fall and we'll sack it any day now.

Assuming that I shouldn't have any issues sailing from Ilium back to Ithaca, I'll be home soon.

Your loving husband,
Odysseus

[Anonymous No.10399240]

>>10399089
Dear Clytemnestra

Not an hour goes by without me being tormented by thoughts of nostos. How I miss it, our little shepherd cabin up by the mountains where the land is green all year around. Where our kids full of life would run around and play while the smell of flowers lie thick in the air. And you, you with your long blonde hair caught in a summer breeze, smiling, laughing as little Orestes wrestled down uncle Diomedes.

If I only could go back in time I would never had set sail. Rather I'd surrender the whole of Achaea. But now after so much death and suffering it seems that the walls of troy will at give way. After these horrible ten years we will finally soon be home.

Forever yours, Agamemnon

[Anonymous No.10399335]

>>10394528
god that is awful please stop please don't i prefer all the polposting in the world to this kind of sincere and drivelly slop