ISSUES INVOLVED OVER TIME

The main issue involved in this poem is war and how it separates loved ones. 

THEN:

Back during World War 1 many women would've been left widowed and many children would've been left fatherless. In those days war was seen as a joyous thing and dying for your country was righteous and was praised. The children who were left fatherless would've been told stories about how brave their father must have been and how he died in a grand way, how he fought for his country and his family. His children would be left only knowing that their dad was a hero. They wouldn't know the gruesome details of how he died, or if he had even fought at all. the widowed women also wouldn't know how their husbands fought or the details of how they died. Vera Brittain probably didn't know much about how her fiance died, only that he was shot by a German sniper. Her main focus at the time would've just been on the fact that her fiance was shot, that he was dead and that there would be no happy wedding, only tears and pain. She wrote the poem to express how she was feeling, it was probably the same as what all the other widowed women felt. 

The men of the time, however probably saw it as being sappy and weak. The men were the ones who truly believed in the power of war and of the praise that the fallen should be receiving, not the feeble romantic poetry Vera wrote about how she felt, all the sadness she felt. The men probably believed that the poetry should've been written about the bravery of the men and how admired they should feel knowing that their loved ones fought for them. Men naturally value their masculinity, especially in those days when war was such a huge issue and they would've been asked to fight. If they had read this poem, they might have felt happy about it, as if that's how women must feel after losing them, it might have made them feel loved. 

NOW:

In these days there isn't a major war going on that is pulling couples apart so the issue doesn't apply well enough in today's society to be analysed as it was above. Sure enough, plenty of people experience breakups throughout their life and if they we're deep enough in love they can feel as though their world is ending.