"The Man He Killed"

This poem is a perfect way to show the effect that a war has on people that are often very similar. Many times the men and boys, and women fighting the war are just every day, live next door Joe's and Jane's. They are also fighting an enemy that is somebody else's father, brother, sister, just like they are. It's nothing personal, it's war. Even their reasoning for the war might have been the same, " "He thought he'd 'list perhaps off-hand- just like I" ( lines 13-14). They fought for the same reasons, because it would support their family. They were so much alike that they could have even " should have set us down to wet right many a nipperkin!" ( lines 3-4 ). They would have shared a drink at a bar and now they were sharing the same burial ground, the same place that they could share a ground where they would lose their lives and ambitions. In fact the only reason he fought back was "I shot him dead because- because he was my foe." ( lines 9-10) Neither of them would want to harm the other, but the fear of the unknown, of the fact that the other person is just as scared that you would pull the trigger, would cause the enemy to pull the trigger just as quickly.