@links
There is a certain romanticism for the trenches which I feel is unwarranted.
The trenches are hell on earth. They are a physical and mental nightmare. They are a quagmire from which few (if any) will emerge. They are not something to celebrate, but to endure and overcome.
Someone "choosing" to be in the trenches never experiences them, just as a wealth person can't experience homelessness simply by sleeping outside. No one chooses to be in the trenches. You are there because you are forced to be there - for your living, for your country, for your family, because you don't fit anywhere else.
There is no glory in the trenches.
And yet the rhetoric I see now glorifies them. Why? To make yourself feel better? As a badge of honour? Or because those outside the trenches benefit from the narrative? Probably all that and more.