Up The Road We Staggered

Up the road we staggered, shells bursting around us. A man stopped dead in front of me, and exasperated I cursed him and butted him with my knee. Very gently he said, "I'm blind, Sir," and turned to show me his eyes and nose torn away by a piece of shell. "Oh God! I'm sorry, sonny," I said. "Keep going on the hard part," and left him staggering back in his darkness...A tank had churned its way slowly behind Springfield and opened fire; a moment later I looked and nothing remained of it but a crumpled heap of iron; it had been hit by a large shell. It was now almost dark and there was no firing from the enemy; ploughing across the final stretch of mud, I saw grenades bursting around the pillbox and a party of British rushed in from the other side. As we all closed in, the Boche garrison ran out with their hands up...we sent the 16 prisoners back across the open but they had only gone a hundred yards when a German machine gun mowed them down. -Edwin Vaughan; WWI wartime officer-

Vaughan wrote this in response to his experience at Passchendaele - an experience that would net no real difference in the war outside of adding thousands of more soldiers to the casualties list of both sides. What I don't get is why generals continued this type of senseless destruction of human life and why the soldiers themselves would subject themselves to it. Obviously desertion came at a high cost (in many cases - the deserters were killed) but staying in does not seem like it was a worthwhile decision either. Beyond a few successful campaigns, most of the Great War centered on skirmishes like Passchendaele in which a small tract of land was exchanged back and forth with heavy losses of life.

My question is this. As a society of people, do we still see the type of honor, courage, and commitment that the common WWI solider displayed? The conflict may have been pointless and futile - but I cannot help but look up to the soldiers on both sides who fought long and hard simply because they believed in their country and fought for what they thought was its honor. It seems now the people don't stand for anything and at the sign of any discomfort they tuck their tales and run. Their was obvious examples of that in the Great War - but for the most part you saw men willing to walk into No Man's Land with a high chance of death and little glory. That is incredible to me.