Paul and his friends found neither glory nor praise on the battlefield. They found suffering, destruction, and death. .
"With this tale about a class of schoolmates who had gone off to war, full of youthful enthusiasm, only to be destroyed, one by one, cruelly and methodically, Remarque had struck a nerve" (Eksteins 2). Paul, as a young man, enters a war that he cannot even begin to imagine. You understand from Paul's viewpoint the war he is fighting is not about countries and religions. His war is about the struggles and emotions of a young man facing hunger, grief, and fear. His feelings of guilt from killing the French soldier are so overwhelming; you know he will never have the opportunity to have a healthy normal life again. He talks to the soldier in the ditch and tells him:.
If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up-take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now. (Remarque 523) .
In the midst of war, Paul finds out that his mother is ill and takes a leave to go home and see her. Initially, he is excited to leave the violence of the war and go home to the peace that he had prior to his enlistment. When Paul finally gets home, he soon feels the distance between himself and his mother and father. The war is so unpleasant for Paul that he is unable to communicate with anyone who has not experienced it first hand. He says: .
I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course who have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and today I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world. (Stickel 1).
After his time at war, he comes to realize that most pre-war society doesn't understand the war for what it is. They don't understand the suffering and misery that go with the war. The only way that Paul can come to grips with reality is to disassociate himself from his parents and his old friends.