Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon

The transcription is a poem called "Suicide in the Trenches" by C. Creed Sassoon, read by Average White Man. It tells the story of a simple soldier boy who seems happy on the surface but eventually takes his own life. The poem criticizes the people who cheer for soldiers but don't understand the hardships they face. I knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy, slept soundly through the lonesome dark, and whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches cowed and glum, with crumps and lice and lack of rum, he put a bullet through his brain, no one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye, who cheer when soldier lads march by, sneak home and pray you'll never know, the hell where youth and laughter go. Suicide in the Trenches by C. Creed Sassoon, read by Average White Man