A letter from the trenches WW1

Dear Mother,
I know this is going to sound strange but something amazing happened today. No we didn’t push the Germans back or find a cure for trench foot, which would have been nice. In fact it was almost better than that. I’m not sure why but they just started singing Christmas carols the Fritz I mean, and then we started singing. Our men started singing. I was singing.

We both sang for what felt like hours and then we stopped. Both sides sat in silence for a couple of minutes even the artillery in the distance was silent. Then there was a boy from our side who looked to be my age probably just turned 18 and I had never met before, and he just got out of the trench. No one said to attack or charge he just pulled himself over the edge of the trench and walked into No Man’s Land. No rifle, no grenades, nothing just himself. Everyone thought he had gone mad and was trying to tell him to get back into the trench. While that commotion was happening I could faintly hear orders bing given from the other side but I didn’t dare look over in case of an enemy sniper. But I didn’t need to see what was happening the Germans thought we were attacking and they were getting ready to gun the poor kid down.

But we didn’t hear any gunfire. Their rifles and machine guns were silent. It was then that I worked up my courage and peaked over and I saw another boy from the other side about the same age as the kid from our side ,climb out of his trench as well and began walking towards us. Next thing I knew men from both side began to climb out of their trenches.

Now what happens next is really bizarre because after a few moments of awkward silence our commanding officer and the German commanding officer stand in front of each other and shake hands. And as if that handshake was contagious everyone began to greet, and hug each other. Some of us talked others traded or shared gifts they had received from home we even started a futbol(soccer) game. It was great. However as the day ended and we all headed back to our trenches we all new that the next day we were most likely kill the men we had just talked to, shared gifts with, played with, and just been people with. But today was a beautiful day and nothing will change that for me.

Love,
Henry