Co. K Chapter Summary

Co. K by William March shares first person testimonies of soldiers during WWI. The narrators consist of individual soldiers who are living or dead. The book allows a different view of what happened during WWI. The book goes over the life of the soldiers during warfare and how it affected them throughout the time. The argument March proposes gives the reader a different outlook on war; provides historians with reliable information could be of use. Accordingly, in Co. K the common theme throughout is based on the loss and hardship of the war and how the soldiers handled it.
Part of the significance of reading Co. K is getting the soldier’s side of what happened during WWI. Historians were able to learn the different conditions that the soldiers went through and how they coped with them. By reading the book, a historian can
He makes his argument by explaining that war is not the heroic, friendly battle it is commonly believed to be. Many soldiers lost their innocence and values during wartime. They found themselves killing twenty-two helpless prisoners, committing suicide, and just killing at random. A type of animalistic instinct kicked in when sent off to fight; the heroic aspect of war quickly vanished and was replaced with the fear of survival. He relays the account of an injured German trying to reach out for help after being wounded. The American soldiers automatically thought he was trying to get a grenade and shot him to death. The German was only reaching in his pocket to get a picture of his daughter. This is an example of a changed soldier who, after serving for so long, thinks of only one thing--killing. Evidence supporting March’s thought on WWI’s violent battles opens the eyes of uninformed readers to what wartime was truly like. Thus, Co. K gives its audience a different perspective on wartime