Task 2: We slept with our Boots on

Hey all,

  Basically, as I have mentioned earlier, this poem shares about the poets' (most likely) first-hand experience of him fighting for his country. It is a indeed pretty accurate description of the scene during war, with gory scenes of death mixed with tough and testing times for the soldiers. More importantly, it emphasises the haplessness of these soldiers, with this particular quote, "you do what you have to do, with that I will say no more" hinting that these soldiers might be unwilling to do what they actually do, but they do it anyway for the "greater good", which in this case refers to their country.

  Firstly, the poet takes a first person POV, making everything that he describes seem much more realistic as we readers have the impression that the author, or to some extent even ourselves, is experiencing the things taking place. The setting of the poem is a battlefield, where the situation is like a typical war setting, where there are gory scenes such as death and blood and and a tense atmosphere, as seen from the fact that the soldiers "slept with our boots on" so they would be able to react in the fastest possible time should there be a need to. This emphasises the fact that one small mistake will lead to a disastrous outcome, and that every second counts. This, in turn, creates the tense atmosphere present.

   There are a few literary devices used in the poem by the poet. Firstly, alliteration. There is one significant usage of alliteration in the poem, and that is the phrase "from house to cave, to car to creek". the repeated usage of the "c" sound at the beginning of each of the three words (cave, car and creek) emphasises the fact that the poet's platoon fought war practically everywhere at many different places, making it seem that war is an unavoidable happening. Also, there is a repeated use of the word "and" in the phrase "I kept pulling the trigger and reloading and pulling some more" instead of divinding it into two respective phrases so as to emphasise the fact that the poet kept firing his gun, likely out of fear or desperation in my opinion. Thus, this brings out the scary side of war and instills in us a sense of fear towards war, something that will prevent us from seeking to start another war, which is exactly what the poet had in mind when he wrote this poem.

  There is also good usage of contrast in the poem demonstrated in lines 23 and 24, where the poet compares "hell and god" and "beauty and terror". He is probably linking beauty to god and hell to terror, and as he was climbing  up a "steep mountain" at that time, he was most likely describing the arduous journey as "hell" and as he was on a high mountain, he could be considered "close to god" too. He probably writes this to emphasise the fact that war is terrible and that soldiers suffer horribly during war, as we readers will be appalled by how such terrible things can be so near to heaven, a place where we normally assosciate with peacefulness. The word "drunkard" also emphasises how the author might actually detest war but had no choice but to fight in it,
so he "drinks" so as to be able to forget about his guilt when he kills others.

  Lastly, the poem is in the form of free verse, making it seem rather messy and untidy. This is very similar to war as battlefields are areas of mass confusion.