The thoughts that come to mind while reading her personal experience is just "wow." I think the biggest thing that stands out is loss of the individual. Both Roland and Vera were a certain way before the war started. Both were intellegent individuals that looked forward to the future and what all life had coming for them. But then war broke out and all of their ideas of the future changed. It is just amazing to think that these two people were around our age and had the same thoughts we have, but then it is all interupted by war, total war at that. When the war broke out, their lives changed. Roland went to war and his views of life changed as the war went on. Vera went to work as a nurse and her views on life changed as well. It really seems that each of them grew away from themselves and what they had known. It just really hits because it raises a lot of questions, to me, about what if something like this broke out today. Our lives would be changed by it and how it affected us. We would have to change much like they had to change.

It is shocking how the war effected the youth during it all. So many of the youth were thrown into this unreal situation and had to live with it. Young men were sent to trenches and witnessed death all around them. Women were put to work and first exprenced the horrors of war by being nurses. It is shocking the toll this generation was faced with and had to deal with. I believe that is who the war affected the most.