from Garth's talk that struck me:
Like many WWI vets, Frodo returned from war mutilated in body and spirit by his experience. Garth remarked that the physical amputation suffered by so many survivors was matched by a loss of psychological integrity. Returning soldiers also experienced conflicting and unexpected emotions--some grieved the end of war, for example, a feeling that might be reflected in Frodo's bouts of grief over the loss of the Ring. They mourned  the breaking of the fellowships formed in the trenches, and found that civilians could not understand what they had been through. They reproached themselves unreasoningly for surviving when others had died--Tolkien's own division was wiped out while he was invalided home.

With respect to the resemblances between the Ringwraiths and the horrors of the battlefield, Garth noted that WWI battlefield accounts remarked on the disjunction between the seemingly supernatural German soldiers and their solidly earth-bound horses. He also pointed out that  in early drafts of Fellowship Frodo had the sensation of unseen wings passing over him after his wound on Weathertop--a phenomenon reported by battlefield accounts-- long before JRRT introduced the notion of flying Ringwraiths. The rhythms of battle are also reproduced in LotR, with its constant repetition of the pattern: struggle forward, encounter grave danger, escape danger, rest, repeat.

Finally, to me one of the most poignant reactions shared by Frodo and shell-shocked soldiers in the trenches was the loss of memory of ordinary life.

I do find that the associations between Frodo and Sam's experiences and those of the WWI battlefield soldiers deepens my appreciation of both.

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"Eat some lembas, Mr. Frodo."

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