n The Gulf War were between 26 and 27 years old. They were properly trained and had the audacity that younger soldiers lack. The older men also do not loose their youth. They had something that no one can take away, memories of their childhood and teenage years. That is something World War I veterans never had in the first place.Through the book All Quiet on the Western Front, it tells all the horrors of war. It also tells of comradeship and the lost generation. Baumer states, "I can not bear to look at his hands, they are like wax. Under the nails is the dirt of the trenches, it shows through blue black like poison. It strikes me that these nails will continue to grow like lean fantastic cellarplants long after Kemmerich breathes his last."(15) Could you imagine seeing this during a lifetime, but all at the age of nineteen. In the book, Paul sees all his friends meet their demise, in the end Paul dies himself. The survival rate in the war was extremely low. The men went to sleep every night not knowing if it would be their last night on the planet.Another memorable passage from the book is when Albert Kropp exclaims; "We are the iron youth."(18) What does he mean by this? One must realize the meaning of this phrase. They truly are youthful and they have been turned to iron, so-to-speak. They are called the iron youth because mostly youths were fighting in the war. Since these men loose their youth after the war, they are no longer youths, but they become iron youth, who no longer have the innocence that of a normal youth. Baumer again illustrates the lost generation when saying, "And men will not understand us- for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten- and the generation after us will be strange to us and push us aside."(294) Paul is trying to say that the older generation isn't used to...
