Monday, October 4, 2010

All quiet on the Western Front


Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see that you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Rorgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony? Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert...
...Comrade,...today you, tomorrow me. But if I come out of it comrade, I will fight against this, that has struck us both down; from you, taken life and from me? Life also.

~Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.
Sometime, I plan to read this book, I think it's probably worth-while... I found the reference in one of my old school books, which I found while going through stuff on my desk in preparation for moving. Of course I had to find the book back and page through it...
Kind of thought-provoking, anyways.

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