The forgotten soldier essays

The forgotten soldier essays The hardships that Guy Sajer and his comrades must face start from the very beginning. It begins with Guy simply trying to find shelter from the rain as they wait for a train. At the time he had no idea these were going to be some of the most pleasant conditions he would come across during his journey. Once we he was on the train he had no choice but to travel in an open boxcar and the rain turned into snow with a biting wind. When he finally reached Minsk conditions got much worse. He makes an account of one night when the mercury dropped to five degrees below zero, my hands and feet felt the cold so sharply that it sometimes seemed as if the pain were stabbing me in the heart, (24). However he did not realize that in Minsk it could actually get much worse, On that day the temperature fell to thirty-five degrees below zero, and I thought I would sure die. Nothing could warm us. We urinated into our numbed hands to warm them, and, hopefully to cauterize the gaping cracks in o ur fingers. Each movement of my fingers opened and closed deep crevices that oozed with blood. He said the pain was so great it made him sick to his stomach and he broke down into tears (37). When he did finally get to sleep it was always cold and on the floor, he would awake numb and stiff. He once had to hold a mans leg while it was being amputated and when it was finished he was holding the unattached leg in his hand. The soldiers were constantly underfed and were given rotten meat that sue to the cold was frozen by the time they went to eat it anyway. At one point during his time in Minsk Sajers toes, turned an ashen gray and he had to receive a painful injection to avoid amputation (62). At one point Sajer comments on one of the grisly aspects of battle, we felt as if we could smell the presence of death-and by this I dont mean the process of decomposition, but the smell that emanates from d...