Alternate Assignment: Young Soldiers Fight Wars for Reasons They Don’t Understand
The reason for enlisting and going to war is obvious: you go to war to fight for your country and be a hero. Is this actually the case? In the movie All Quiet on the western front, we see why young soldiers really go to war. And yes, the reason for which they claim they go to war, is to be of service to their home country and show their patriotism. Not only do I find the statement of “young soldiers fight wars for reasons they don’t understand” true, but the 1929 movie dives into the young soldiers’ minds’, and show the thinking of young soldiers during the war.
One way the Movie shows this, is by showing the emotional struggles …show more content…
The teacher told them how honourable it was to die for their country. They were naive, and listening to an “older and wiser” man, as they have been taught raised to do so. He was still a kid and was more so influenced by the fact he’d be able to miss school, rather than thinking about dying for his country. This is also proof that he isn’t ready for war along with his classmates, because they still think like boys, not men. When paul came back to tell the younger boys how war was, he said how it really isn’t like what the teacher is telling them, and it’s really just a game of kill or be killed. The class is obviously brainwashed by the teacher, because they shout and chant that Paul is coward. When Paul goes back, he meets some of the 16 year old boys fighting in the trenches. This definitely got to think that maybe, it’s not so much that the boys and men are choosing to go to war for their own reasons, but they are being told over and over by older “wiser” men, that war is good and it makes you a man. I think a lot of young soldiers that came out of the war, certainly regretted even thinking of