This chapter was mainly about Paul going to train with the moors, and how he soon discovers that their enemies aren't much different than their allies and friends. A particular paragraph really stood out to me on page 190. "It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They have faces that make one think- honest peasant faces, broad mouths, broad hands and thick hair." Also, a sentence after that, "They look as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland." He is among his enemy soldiers but he is looking at them closer than ever, realizing they are people, not just things they are killing. Then when he says about them looking as kindly as their own peasants, it shows that he is realizing they are real people, just like his soldiers, friends, and family. Another great quote was page 193, "A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends." This is basically saying that the only reason they don't get along is because someone told them to hate each other. Like we had talked about in class, and read poems about, the soldiers listen to their leaders and hate who they are told to hate.
It's so easy for them to fire from across a barbed wire fence, shooting at figures in the distance, killing a random man who they will never have the chance to get to know. But up-close, like Paul is, he see's they are normal people like him, and it softens him, opening his eyes to how hard and terrible killing each other has been and will be. Seeing his enemies this close adds some reality to the war. Instead of just killing these figures, he realizes that they each have names, families, people they care about, and lives they'll be leaving behind.
This is a picture of the soldiers of world war 1, along the barbed wire. These are the soldiers that their enemies will shoot at but never get to know, killing someone who, if the war hadn't happened, might have been their friends.
This chapter got to me. He's always out on the battle field fighting for his country and killing innocent people. But for what? To burn of their anger at one another? Talk it out don't kill thousands of innocent men because someone told you that they were trying to kill you because they were told the same exact thing by their commander about you. When he's among the enemy he can't even tell that they are trying to kill him. He just sees them as normal people stuck there as he is and pinned against each other in the trenches. War is pointless and solves nothing but overpopulation.
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