Diary Entry #2

Robert Johnson
January 22, 1915
12:00 p.m
France

This winter has been unbearably cold. We soldiers will do anything to keep ourselves warm but it's hard to do so when we're all wet from the rain. Our coats, socks and boots don't dry out fast enough before we have to go the trench to fight again. We've tried everything to soak up the cold water like putting warm newspaper in our coats and boots to soak up that extra water. It's almost impossible to find dry socks here because there are so many cold men and few dry socks. Some men are fortunate enough to get extra socks and sweaters mailed to them from relatives at home. Boy, I wish I was that lucky.

We're simply freezing here and there's no way to keep warm because it's always raining, sleeting or snowing. Many men here have gotten trench foot which is almost like a frost bite because they don't have dry and warm socks or boots. The officers have us change our socks with the few extra they have every so often. We have to rub a grease on our feet before putting on the socks. We're all responsible for reminding each other to change our socks while we're out on the front otherwise we'll forget and end up getting trench foot. It's hard to keep track of all these things because we're out here trying to fight for our lives in these horrendous conditions.