Life in the front lines

To my beloved wife and children,

My experience here in the trenches is nothing like being at home, for sure. It's crazy being here, when i signed up for this i would not expect the front lines being like this. There are so many rats crawling on me and my men and especially the dead corpses around here. The rats feed off the dead bodies and whenever i wake up the first thing i see is a rat or two just crawling up and around my uniform. When i come home to you guys i will make sure i'll bring one home for you Tommy! I'm just kidding. Considering how dirty we are, we get some complaints on how some of the men have lice on them. We call them "itch-coos." Because of the lice we usually tend to keep shaving our heads so the lice won't lay their eggs in our hair. Not only do they lay their eggs in our hair but as well on our clothing. The itchie-coos like to lay the eggs on the seam of our clothing so every night before bed or every time we have free time we search our clothing for them. The trenches are way too overcrowded, there are so many people crammed up into one area so it's really hard to fall asleep while everyone is snuggled up with each other.

Our shifts here are pretty well organized. Me and some of the other different positioned troops exchange places every forty-right hours. Than after a hard four days of being in the trenches we all retire for four days and rest. While we all rest up for the four days we have, fresh new troops take our spots as we move out. Than after we are all fully rested up we return back to the trenches.

So far, being here has been an emotional roller coaster. i am missing everyone back at home and it always feels like i may not even make it past another day. But my soldiers here make me feel a lot better. They're like my family and all i have right now. It's really hard to see some not make another day after being so close with them. But i am lucky to have live another day and be writing to you  guys as i am right now, and i'll be coming home soon!