All Quiet On the Western Front
Like many millions of Americans I certainly support the troops. Some folks wear their support as a badge of honor and that's certainly all well and good. Yet I'd be lying if I said that there's not a nagging tickle at the back of my mind.
I finally sort of figured it out.
Back when I was a teenager we read the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, in one of our English classes. I know a lot of other folks hated reading time in those classes, but I absolutely loved it and would volunteer to be the reader all the time.
All Quiet on the Western Front disturbed me horribly back then as my young mind was forming.
The narrator of the story is a German soldier and he takes us through the battle. From the foxhole to the hospital we are exposed to the absolute horrors of what is referred to as The Great War (fans of war like to glorify the horrendous battles) - World War I.
The book is raw.
The reading isn't always smooth and when the story shifts to the legs that are being amputated and the loss of faith as the men around Paul die...it gets uncomfortable.
It really makes one wonder about the troops and the poor decisions of others that put them in harms way.
There are a number of beautifully written paragraphs that make me cringe.
When Remarque takes the reader into the hospital with Paul and explains that it is just one hospital and there are thousands of others in all of the other countries where soldiers are being treated.
How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible? It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out.
How is it that there is still such a business of war?
How many folks have lost their lives in battles that certainly are not quite as glory-filled as made out to be?
A hundred million men and women killed in war in the last 100 years.
Let that sink in.
For what?
Profit?
Toward the end of the book Paul explains that he has sort of sifted through all of the suffering and pain and figured out that none of it meant a single thing.
He recalls being face-to-face with an enemy soldier who was scared of the confrontation but willing to fight purely for self-preservation. Paul 'won' the battle and killed the man, but he thinks of the man's family that moves on without him.
Powerful stuff.
The book was written in 1928 and man if it doesn't hold up today!
All the confusion in the mind of the soldier.
The ugliness of war.
Losing faith in faith.
Just a few years ago I heard an interview with John Mellencamp...he was talking about the business of war...he said that blood should not be shed just for the sake of trying out the new weapons. He stated that he could not think of any reason why there should ever be another war.
(That's surely a statement that brings about ridicule by the aggressive folks who crank the wheel of the war machine)
The interviewer said something about 'having to respond violently' to some of the real threats in today's war.
And Mellencamp gave that little grin of his:
"Another man conditioned to believe," he said.
It's a violent, nasty world.
War is a huge money-making machine.
All Quiet on the Western Front put that nagging tickle back in my mind.
Just a fabulous book.
Also...the author was chased out of Germany because of the way that he presented the German war machine...his sister was captured and beheaded as a protest to the author.
I'm not sure that there has been another book...about war...that has covered more ground.
In the end...
...the peace that the author was trying to promote...
was ignored.
World War II was right around the corner.
We are conditioned to believe in war.
I finally sort of figured it out.
Back when I was a teenager we read the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, in one of our English classes. I know a lot of other folks hated reading time in those classes, but I absolutely loved it and would volunteer to be the reader all the time.
All Quiet on the Western Front disturbed me horribly back then as my young mind was forming.
The narrator of the story is a German soldier and he takes us through the battle. From the foxhole to the hospital we are exposed to the absolute horrors of what is referred to as The Great War (fans of war like to glorify the horrendous battles) - World War I.
The book is raw.
The reading isn't always smooth and when the story shifts to the legs that are being amputated and the loss of faith as the men around Paul die...it gets uncomfortable.
It really makes one wonder about the troops and the poor decisions of others that put them in harms way.
There are a number of beautifully written paragraphs that make me cringe.
When Remarque takes the reader into the hospital with Paul and explains that it is just one hospital and there are thousands of others in all of the other countries where soldiers are being treated.
How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible? It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out.
How is it that there is still such a business of war?
How many folks have lost their lives in battles that certainly are not quite as glory-filled as made out to be?
A hundred million men and women killed in war in the last 100 years.
Let that sink in.
For what?
Profit?
Toward the end of the book Paul explains that he has sort of sifted through all of the suffering and pain and figured out that none of it meant a single thing.
He recalls being face-to-face with an enemy soldier who was scared of the confrontation but willing to fight purely for self-preservation. Paul 'won' the battle and killed the man, but he thinks of the man's family that moves on without him.
Powerful stuff.
The book was written in 1928 and man if it doesn't hold up today!
All the confusion in the mind of the soldier.
The ugliness of war.
Losing faith in faith.
Just a few years ago I heard an interview with John Mellencamp...he was talking about the business of war...he said that blood should not be shed just for the sake of trying out the new weapons. He stated that he could not think of any reason why there should ever be another war.
(That's surely a statement that brings about ridicule by the aggressive folks who crank the wheel of the war machine)
The interviewer said something about 'having to respond violently' to some of the real threats in today's war.
And Mellencamp gave that little grin of his:
"Another man conditioned to believe," he said.
It's a violent, nasty world.
War is a huge money-making machine.
All Quiet on the Western Front put that nagging tickle back in my mind.
Just a fabulous book.
Also...the author was chased out of Germany because of the way that he presented the German war machine...his sister was captured and beheaded as a protest to the author.
I'm not sure that there has been another book...about war...that has covered more ground.
In the end...
...the peace that the author was trying to promote...
was ignored.
World War II was right around the corner.
We are conditioned to believe in war.
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