In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Owen draws attention to the way young men who go off to war "die as cattle." This simile emphasizes the great number of those who die as well as their apparent namelessness as they are slaughtered. They seem dehumanized. Most of them do not get proper funerals; no bells or choirs ring for them, only the sound of the terrible guns and gas shells wailing. They get no candles and no pall or flowers. Often, soldiers in World War I had to be buried overseas, or their remains may not even have ever been recovered or identified. Families waited at home for their loved one, missing a son, father, brother, or husband. Soldiers may die in droves, but they are missed as individuals.

In "The Sniper," an Irish Republican sniper is seriously wounded by an enemy sniper just across the street from where he hides, and he tricks that enemy into believing that he has died. When the enemy sniper reveals himself, the Republican sniper shoots him dead, pleased that he has saved himself even though it cost another man, a stranger, his life. When he goes to the dead sniper's position out of some strong, unexplained desire to see that man's face, he sees that he has actually killed his own brother.

Both Owen's poem and O'Flaherty's short story show the real brutality of war rather than glorifying it as something dutiful and patriotic. They show the human cost, the cost to individuals and families, and the real human sorrow of losing someone we love. Thus, they convey they idea that war is personal.