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Which military figure's service has inspired you the most? (J ~
B Block History
March 1sl 2011
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace, Behind the wagon that we flung him
in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of
sin; ... " Wilfred Owen's powerful war poetry was the voice for a doomed generation of soldiers.
He used powerful images of war and brilliant literary devices to become one of the greatest poets
of his time. Owen's words changed the views of a generation, and opened their eyes to the
atrocities of the war. His poetry was the essential backdrop to understanding the horrors of trench
warfare. Wilfred Owen is the military figure whose service has inspired me the most.
Wilfred Owen was a war poet from World War I who witnessed firsthand the horrors of
war. He took his experiences as a soldier and turned them into an art which influenced many
people, including myself. He is inspirational because of the fact that he went into the war with
the mindset that many soldiers had; ready to fight and prepared to risk everything for his country.
His valiant attitude earned him the rank of lieutenant. However, this attitude did not last long. As
his experiences in the war became horrifying, his need to prove his masculinity and bravery
began to diminish. Owen, like many other soldiers, began to realize the hideousness and brutality
of war. During his first two years in the trenches, he suffered two major traumatic experiences.
He was blown into the air by a trench mortar, captured and forced to spend days in a German
dugout with no food or water. He was then rescued, but later that year suffered hypothermia in
the freezing cold winter. He was admitted to Craighlockheart hospital in 1917, diagnosed with a
severe case of shell shock. This is where he wrote many of his first poems, and developed and
grew as a writer. During his time at Craiglockhart, Owen wrote his most famous poem; Dulce et
Decorum Est. This poem would expose the horrors of trench warfare and the immense suffering
of all soldiers. It would change the way'people thought about war in years to come. It opened
people's eyes and educated them on what truly goes on on the battlefield.
"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
through sludge. Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest
began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All
went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines
that dropped behind."
These words, along with his other anti-war poems, paint an unpleasant yet still vivid and
influential picture. It is inspiring to know that Wilfred Owen used poetry as a mechanism to deal
with the stressfulness and pain of his war experiences. His words are inspiration to those who
feel that there is no outlet for their pain and suffering. Owen used poetry as a way to deal with
his tragic experiences in World War 1. His writing serves as an example to not only soldiers, but
to many other people. The fact that his views about war changed so drastically in the course of
only a few years inspires me to believe that it is inevitable for more and more people to start
realizing the atrocities of war.
Wilfred Owen is undoubtedly the most significant and inspirational military figure in my
life to date. He was the voice of all the suffering soldiers of the first World War. His poems can
be applied to any war because the words he wrote are still as powerful today as they were ninety
years ago. His life and writing influenced many young men and women both in his time and
almost a century afterwards.