Five years ago, that was when it started. That was when my life changed forever and my world began to change into the hell I am forced to live through today. The worst day of my life was 28 July 1914. Although I didn't know it at the time. It's was the day World War One began. Newly 20. I was engaged to my girlfriend and it was when I made the worst decision of my life, I signed up for the war effort. I was excited at the time, next week I was being shipped out to Africa to fight for the British army against the Germans and I thought it was a great adventure. Boy, was I wrong. At least in the same squad as my best friend, but that turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing.
We were deployed to Nigeria and sent sent to fight the German force in Kamerun. Our squad was sent ahead to set up and defend trenches. The air was thick with the overwhelming stench of gunpowder and death. It hit us like a wave. Instantly vomit went everywhere, only adding to the suffocating odour. One afternoon a light green haze began to enter the trench, it looked a bit like mint ice cream but smelled strongly of the local swimming pool. Then I realised, with a shock, what it was. "Gas! Gas!", "Get out of the trenches". The warning was too late. There was too much gas. I was out of the trench keeping watch at the time so I was mostly unaffected but I saw my entire squad suffocate in front me. I saw my best friend cough up blood as his body gasped for oxygen while it was only being filled with chorine. He asked me to shoot him. To end the pain. I complied. I live this moment over and over in my mind and can't shake the helplessness I felt as my best friend died before my eyes.
I was then taken by the German forces as a prisoner. I didn't even notice. All I felt was an overwhelming numbness as I realised I had just killed my best friend. In the German prison I began to waste away. I lost the will to live. We were fed meagre amounts of food that tasted like they were form the rear end of an elephant. While constantly being forced to complete labour work around the camp. Harsh punishments were given out to those who disobeyed the guards. I knew would die within a few years due to the mistreatment. Every day my joints burned with pain as if they were on fire, my muscles ached for hours on end and my stomach screamed out for food rumbling like thunder. But we were rescued by French forces in the area, they informed us the war was over we had won. For me it was a hollow victory, sure we weren't ruled by Germans but I had lost my best friend, seen men die before my eyes and realised the complete waste of life and suffering the war had caused. They took us to the coast and told us to make our own way home as they had done their job.
It took me a almost a year to make it home as I had no idea how to get there, upon returning I discovered my girlfriend had married another man after I did not return from the war with the others from our town. She was shocked to see me but told me she did not love me anymore and had found someone else. That was the single worst moment of my life, it felt like my heart had been ripped out, cut up, stomped on and put back in. The one thing I lived for when imprisoned had left me. I quickly left town and moved to America, got a job and a house. I live alone, afraid to love as everything I had ever loved had left me and I didn't want to have to go through so much pain again.
It is said that the war changed people, some for the better others for the worse. I don't agree with that. The war did not change it destroyed me. It stole my best friend, left me weak and broken, took away the one I loved most and left me a dry hard shell of a man. The war did not change me, it ruined my life and left me unable to love. I am afraid to sleep as my nights are plagued with nightmares. Simple tasks become exceedingly difficult as the chlorine has hampered my breathing. This also acts as a constant reminder of the men I left withering and choking on the ground and the moment I killed my best friend out of sympathy. Every time I breath, they can't. Because of this the war is never far from my mind and neither is the enormous waste of life it was. I used to be an energetic young man with a heart full of love and adventure. Now I'm alone, plagued by nightmares and memories, afraid to get close to people in case they are ripped away. I have lived through and survived the worst life has to offer. I survived the war. To think if I had just stayed home that day five years ago.