Remains ⭐

enjambment (internal suffering)

'and i swear//i see round as it rips through his life' causes tension & builds up to violent imagery. = speaker unable to separate events? just as sentences flow on, his memories cause past to flow into present = continues to be haunted by what did & moment will hold influence over rest of life, unable to be isolated/forgotten.

enj occurs break up the sents ab death & suffering, = pain witnessed breaks him as it break the stucture

caesura (internal suffering)

'then i'm home on leave. But i blink' = finality, going home should be end of memory of event & the extent of its impact on him, as war zone shouldn't be able to impact him once leaves. Hwvr, conjunctive 'but' shows how war continues to permeate him even when he should be able to escape it

leave should: relaxation & recovery, opportunity for peace & rest 'but i blink' = doubt that this will be true as actual response separated through enjambment. Caesura interrupts the sentence, just as memories of conflict interrupt his everyday. (reader pause - pressure on men, toxic masculinity in army can erupt)

contrast between colloquial language & gruesome/violent imagery

'so' 'i swear' 'legs it' 'mates' - referring to the dead bodies = soldiers have become deadened & desensitised to harsh realities of war- this allows them to talk ab death & suffering in colloquial terms

used tools of war (causes loose their individuality & humanity)

'three of a kind' 'are all the same mind' = soldiers trained to think same way, must suspect everyone of being enemy & fire. = war breeds certain kind of person & changes them into more aggressive & disturbing ppl who j have to follow orders ['we get sent out'] w/o question.

soliders not supposed to Q the morality of killing& to shoot w/o thinking as they're programmed to think binary manner (enemy not enemy mindset) only afterwards he starts to consider the implications of what he did, as his thoughts are altered by the PTSD he has suffered as consequence of conflict fought in.

memory/psychological impact: explores idea memory is not reliable & can be corrupted by trauma: observed from speakers shift over course of narrative from deflecting blame --> feeling entirely to blame

- also investigates how PTSD can isolate you & make feel entirely alone, how will change how u view events due to intensified guilt from going over & over an event in head

- Memory allows conflict to ​invade the domestic sphere​. caesura​ ​“Then I’m home on leave. But I blink”​ provides a finality to the phrase. = that going home should end of his memory of war & the extent of impact. Hwvr, conjunction​ ​“but” =that war continues to impact him despite him physically escaping it.

guilt speaker starts denying involvement &guilt, ends up accepting once stops hiding how really feels from reader. relates to strong expectation for soldiers to be strong ¬ display emotions and put up a brave facade. TOXIC MASCULINITY

speaker mentions looter killed: ​“probably armed, possibly not”​,= slight chance he could've innocent ¬ threat.​ “Probably” comes 1st bc what he wants to believe as it provides justification.

clear ​anaphora​ of phrase later in poem, to = how he's focused on possibility of killing being unjustified, &how guilt consumes him & regrets killing looter. This ​cyclical structure ​shows how stuck in his mind & is forced to keep coming back to this question. The crux of his suffering is guilt.