I used to think that going to war would be amazing. My father was forever telling me how proud he would be when I signed up, when I finally became a soldier. Sometimes, he would tell me stories about his friends who were still fighting in the war, and he even got letters from them. I was looking forward to being a soldier, so when I turned 17 I really wanted to sign up. Our class at school barely had anybody in it because everyone had signed up, even my best friend Edward. Only Charlie and I remained, because we were the youngest. Charlie was 15 and I was 17, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted make my father proud.

They didn’t blink an eye when I signed up. Maybe I looked older, or maybe they just didn’t care. I was glad I would be able to see Edward again. I didn’t feel regretful about my decision at all, I was excited that I would finally become who I was born to be - a soldier. I kept it a secret from my father though, as I wanted it to be a surprise. How I wish I could have said goodbye to him now.

My first day of training was better than I thought it would be. I had heard stories of nasty corporals that almost killed a few boys back when not many had signed up from school so I thought it would be terrible. Us soon-to-be soldiers lined up and were split into groups of around ten. I was surprised at the amount of people who must’ve signed up with their friends because everyone seemed to have paired off with someone - I felt a bit left out. Our Corporal ended up being the nicest guy ever. His name was Corporal Watson and he joked around a lot so if you did something wrong he’d just make fun of you a bit and everyone would laugh. It was all good until the last month of training when our Corporal caught a mysterious disease and he had to go home. We got Corporal Burns as a replacement - and everyone knew about Corporal Burns. Relentless he was, or so the stories said. A few of the lads in my group were messing around and were sent out to the muddy field for hours! I had laughed and then Corporal Burns made me do extra training for the rest of the week. At the end of our training however, everyone seemed jolly and was looking forward to going on the front line. We all felt like we were ready to be soldiers, yet we didn’t know the reality of the war.