While the man is dying slowly, Paul is overcome with guilt because he again feels that the enemy is not an enemy but rather a victim just as Paul is himself. After the incident, Paul and his friends are sent to guard a supply depot for three weeks. During the next battle, Paul breaks his leg and injures his arm, and one of his friends is injured as well. Shortly thereafter, all of Paul's friends are killed in battle one by one. His closest friend and father figure, Kat is killed by a piece of shrapnel while Paul is carrying him to safety. By the fall of 1918, Paul is the only surviving member his classmates. Paul is then poisoned in a gas attack and is given leave. In October 1918, Paul is killed on a day with very little fighting. The report for that day read, "All quiet on the Western Front." Paul dies with a smile on his face as if to say he is finally peaceful.
Nationalism and patriotism were at the heart of every soldier in WWI. Paul and his friends were taught that patriotism required suppressing individuality and personality while in combat. With this embodied idea now learned, they, like many, lose a sense of who they are. The soldiers become dehumanized to situations in which normally they would be sensitive. As in the instance of one of Paul's former classmates dying, another one of the soldiers is concerned with the dying boy's boots (16). Instead of feeling sorrowful, the boy is only thinking about surviving; therefore that is why he needs the boots. WWI damaged the soldier's psyche, and the only way for them to survive was to silence their thoughts and feelings and accept the pain of the brutal war. The soldiers no longer feel the sense of a loyalty to the state as in the beginning but rather a sense to survive the harshness of war. The brutality of the war strips away all the aspects of being human.
As the soldiers get their first experience on the front line, they realize they are no longer human beings but instinctive animals trying to survive day-to-day.
