As World War I ran through Europe, and stories returned back from the front of disaster and tragedy, one man decided that he would tell the world of his experiences. Erich Remarque, a German soldier was the man and the story was All Quiet On the Western Front; this book describe is gruesome detail the brutality that soldiers faced from the first day of recruitment up until the end of the service, which also meant death. In fact this book, eventually becoming a movie, provided such a descriptive portrayal of the suffering and pain in the war, that is was banned from many countries around Europe.
This film depicted a life on the front that was unimaginable to the public. It pictured men short of uniforms true to their conditions, lack of food, infestation of rats, and parades of soldiers charging over trenches only to get plowed over by opposing shells. As the death toll mounted and the reserves grew thin,
As a soldier, Remarque became the voice of the mute, serving as the eyes of families trying to figure out what kind of travesty could leave their little boys so disfigured, so afraid. He not only described the conditions of the war, but also portrayed the injuries of soldiers with such detail, that it could make anyone sick to their stomach. These men saw their friends shot down right next to them, saw them get a leg or arm blown off, and saw them suffer in the hospital only to be discarded just before the brink of death. If a soldier managed to walk back into society unharmed, there was no way he could deal with it. He would console the families of his lost friends and attempt to explain why he was spared but not their own. He would go home to get away from the war, but never be spared a second from it. Whether telling their mothers of the horrors or having visions of the past, it was always on their mind.
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