It is not until Himmelstoss experiences the war and trenches on his own that he attempts to make peace with them. Haie Westhus was a friend of Paul's in the Second Company. Before the war, Haie was a peat-digger and due to his unhappiness at his job, he plans to continue and serve a full term in the army after the war is over just to keep from returning to peat digging. Detering, another of Paul's Second Company friends, tends to think of nothing more than his farm and his wife back at home. Although instructed by his comrades to remain where he was, Detering attempts to take off and return home only to be caught and court-martialed for the remainder. .
All of these men, whether young at start or grown, have grown immensely. Sitting together, discussing what they will do once the war is over becomes a reality check for many of them. "How can a man take all that (real world, job, school) stuff seriously when he's once been out here?" (p78). Paul goes on to answer this question which has been passed around the group and states that nothing can fulfill a mind after what has gone on there. It is then that they allow reality to set in and speak it out loud: "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces" (p79). It was as I read this part that I begun to try to imagine how different life may be for some very close friends of mine in the very near future. With everything that "our" world is going through right now and being at their age, I can't even begin to imagine life as they have it. Then I look at friends of mine training in the Naval Academy and realize that this is it, this is the age, this is the time, and this is "our" world as we know it changing before our eyes. .
After receiving just over 2 weeks leave, Paul finds life even that much harder. He returns to his hometown, everything looking almost new to him. Finding his ill mother and hearing his sisters" voice scream his name he nearly breaks down-just as trained to do so, Paul has learned to hide his emotions and only now do they pour out.
