Item 01: G. O. Hawkins articles and notes ca. 1916-1919 - Page 103
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[Page 103]
1.
First impressions &
thoughts on Active Service
Trench Warfare
Soldiers just withdrawn from the front are resting in a village. Amongst them is one who thinks back and endeavours to arrange in some sort of order the chaos of mental impressions that were stamped, in over-lapping succession, on his brain when at the front.
It is impossible for him to assort, in their correct sequence, his fragmentary recollections of events that happened.
It is almost impossible to put in words, for the understanding of others, even the little that remains coherent in his own senses. He has learned that life is not lived in days nor yet in years but only in moments. He has learned that the living of life even in those moments has been the most sublime when nearest to death.