Co. K by William March shares first person testimonies of soldiers during WWI. The narrators consist of individual soldiers who are living or dead. The book allows a different view of what happened during WWI. The book goes over the life of the soldiers during warfare and how it affected them throughout the time. The argument March proposes gives the reader a different outlook on war; provides historians with reliable information could be of use. Accordingly, in Co. K the common theme throughout is based on the loss and hardship of the war and how the soldiers handled it.
Part of the significance of reading Co. K is getting the soldier’s side of what happened during WWI. Historians were able to learn the different conditions that the soldiers went through and how they coped with them. By reading the book, a historian can understand some soldiers acted the way they did in certain situations. The author also explained trench warfare in order to help readers understand the process of the war. Co. K also describes the different ways men died while fighting: by gunshot, grenades, gas, or by bayonet.
All these ways help both historians and readers grasp the feeling of war. A major disadvantage of Co. K is that the facts in the book do not represent overall picture of war. It is made up of multiple stories of the men serving instead of a single story throughout. The book being comprised of multiple stories can cause bias opinions since the stories only depict either the loss or hardship suffered by the men. March argues that because modern warfare has violence and obscene deaths not only should one side be classified as evil, but both sides.
He makes his argument by explaining that war is not the heroic, friendly battle it is commonly believed to be. Many soldiers lost their innocence and values during wartime. They found themselves killing twenty-two helpless prisoners, committing suicide, and just killing at random. A type of animalistic instinct kicked in when sent off to fight; the heroic aspect of war quickly vanished and was replaced with the fear of survival. He relays the account of an injured German trying to reach out for help after being wounded.
The American soldiers automatically thought he was trying to get a grenade and shot him to death. The German was only reaching in his pocket to get a picture of his daughter. This is an example of a changed soldier who, after serving for so long, thinks of only one thing–killing. Evidence supporting March’s thought on WWI’s violent battles opens the eyes of uninformed readers to what wartime was truly like. Thus, Co. K gives its audience a different perspective on wartime situations. Co. K reveals the soldier’s perspective of WWI showing the reader the evil both sides can possess.
March shows this point very well by using short stories of what the different soldiers went through. The layout of the short pages and normal sized font allows the reader to enjoy the context of the stories and not have to focus on unimportant details. While reading the simple memories the reader is allowed to focus all their attention on the story rather than on difficult or complex words. The short entries make the book interesting and not a typical history source. The book can provide interesting insight into the lives of soldiers during WWI.
The book Co. K portrays the soldier’s lives during wartime and its short entries give an account of each soldier’s personal experience in the war. It also gives a negative perspective on the war instead of the typical idea that war is a good thing. Instead of the Americans being heroes in Co. K, they shown to be evil; just like we were taught the enemy is thoughout our lives. The book shows how some soldiers lose their morals and values by killing innocent people. Overall, the book was very enjoyable and beneficial in learning abou
