I am a Soldier

The sky is blue.-165

[An] attack has come.-112

Against whom against whom?-140

In spite of all, I feel somewhat afraid.-139

How can it be that I must part from [my home]-184

Who knows if I will ever lie in a feather bed again.-182

I cannot bear [this] uncertainty.-181

 

We must brace ourselves.-178

Over us, Chance hovers. -101

The crash of the shells bursts in my ears.-215

All at once everything seems to me confused and hopeless.-87

I think I must be dreaming.-39

 

Day after day passes.-105

We have [only] become wild beasts.-113

If we don’t destroy them, they will destroy us.-115

I am a soldier, I must cling to that.-173

We are marching in column. -239

We stick together, you see. -249

We now feel ourselves like one big family. -267

 

Apparently [another] attack is coming.-214

The sweat breaks out from every pore. -210

The front thunders. -201

I ought to have never come here.-185

I ought to have never come here.-185

The hours are a torture. -196

[We are told of]  heavy losses… -199

[But] I am a soldier,  I must cling to that.-173

[I] want to live at any price.-139

 

Valentina Scotti, 8th Grade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Do Not Forget
Have you ever been out here before? -89

[Where] the night is unbearable?-108

We have tired faces and avoid each other’s eyes.-104

My strength is exhausted.-119

It is so hard for me to be alone with my thoughts.-119

 

We are weary to death.-133

We see time pass in the colorless faces of the dying.-133

These haunted protruding eyes, we know them too well.-109

This war has ruined us for everything.-87

 

Once it was different.-21

I ought to have never come here.-185

I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.-168

And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us. -194

 

The best thing is not to talk about the rotten business.-207

But we do not forget-140

We do not forget-140

 

All at once everything seems to me confusing and hopeless.-87

Life is at an end.-134

The days are hot and the dead lie unburied.-125

It is just as much a matter that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. -101

 

Valentina Scotti, 8th Grader