All Quiet on the Western Front

In All Quiet on the Western Front, an anti-war novel, Paul, the narrator, and his friends are twenty years old and younger, yet they have been through and experienced more than most grown men. Paul refers to himself and others his age as lost because their youth has been taken away from them. They are fighting in a war that makes no sense to them, and are witnessing massive human suffering at a time when …

…ripped away from it and put into a new and frightening place. A place where the world that they had once loved, was being destroyed and they were helping to destroy it. Because of the war, they may never be able to pursue their dreams. They are not risking just physical injuries, but mental and social ones as well. They are risking everything for their country, yet still, they are less than twenty years old.