8

I return to the training camp on the moors where I first got my training at the hands of Himmelstoss. I know very few people here anymore. Training is boring and nothing new. I instead devote my attention to the beauty of the Nature around me. Sometimes I gets so wrapped up that he risks missing commands. Next to the camp is a Russian prison. Often prisoners come across the wire to camp to pick through the garbage for what little food they might find. They don't look much different than my own German farmers, with honest faces of farmers and peasants. They are sick and starving, and beg the Germans for food. Sometimes they trade boots or carvings for food. They are tired and listless, although I am told that at first, they were lively and often fought amongst themselves. I watch them and understand them; they are only my enemy because someone said so. In reality, they are not that different from me. I think that my own officers are more of a true enemy than the Russians. I give them each half a cigarette, and then leaves them be. Towards the end of training, father and my sister come to visit. Mother is now in the hospital, waiting for an operation for her cancer. Father is very worried that he will not have the money to pay for the operation. I can envision him working late, slaving away in order to pay the expensive bills. I tell his father some army jokes to cheer him up. I walk them to the train station, and they give me some jam and potato-cakes that mother made. I go back to camp, but cannot eat the food. I consider giving it all away to the Russians, but thinks of the pain mother was in when she made it, and give the Russians just two cakes.

* Dregs: small solid particles found in liquids such as coffee or wine that sink to the bottom of a container and are most in evidence when the container is nearly empty
“Only the dregs the ladle cannot reach are tipped out and thrown away” (Remarque, 189).
* Chorale: a group of singers specializing in a particular style of music, especially church music
“The prisoners saying a chorale, they sing in parts…” (Remarque, 195)


As more and more American Subs were sunk by German forces, there came to be a point where our patience was lost and we were encourged to go to war.


Whether or not someone is your "Enemy" can oftentimes be determined by forces outside your control. Thus they are baised and your whole life and the lives of others are established by simple words of men.