#procan

1) Oh boy that quote from Douglas Haig in theory is one he said when he visited in St Johns (this was from A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service ) but then the Fighting Newfoundlander source claims it was said by Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston. What is the truth when the sources conflict? I don’t know. I decided to keep it as Haig because there is a lot of complicated feelings around that man and the decisions he made (especially when reading Into the Blizzard and  A Boy from Botwood) 2) I was having conflicting feelings about posting this and having Ben be bitter about the war, with the intentions of memory being more from a working class perspective. I feel like a lot of war narratives glorify it as nation building and a wonderful thing to happen and when boys become men, when in reality its the poor people being sent out to die on the rich mans orders and being promised the world, when in reality all they get is shit. It was quite depressing reading post war narrative where, while some companies hired veterans, there was literally the need to hide the fact you were a war veteran because companies did not want to hire disabled men who had PTSD. 3) Bert is the type of man who typically would look away from someone expressing an emotion that is not anger. The fact he even attempted to comfort is  miraculous haha. He is also secretly Very Thirsty for all the Information because he was raised on war propaganda and thinks the war is cool 4) Yes for some god foresaken reason I did read numerous books just to draw some sad war comic, please do not question how my brain works. I suppose this is more fun than a research paper.

5) Ben survived Beaumont-Hamil and went on to fight some of the other battles such as at Gueudecourt, Sailly-Saillisel and ending at the Battle of Aras, where he lost his leg (is this a spoiler??) (Maybe the question is Why did I think this Through so Much) I should probably say I’ve put him in the first 500 mythos, so he did go to Gallipoli as well and got to enjoy all the flies and trench rats. : )