The return of a Soldier to home soil is one of the most jubilant occasions. Caught up in all of the excitement, however, is the harsh reality of that soldier adjusting back into “everyday society.” Combat is not like our daily 9 to 5.

Paul is completely defeated by the end of the novel, psychologically. He speaks consistently of being dark, empty and emotionless. Paul is very aware that the sort of transformations he has endured change veterans in a way that society back home will never comprehend. If he and the other soldiers were allowed years sooner Paul believed “out of the suffering and the strengths of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm” (Remarque, 1929, page 294).  Now the only words Paul can use to describe himself and fellow war comrades are “weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, without hope, and unable to find our way anymore” (Remarque, 1929, page 294). Paul knows his existence is essentially, unnecessary.

All the veterans returning to Germany will be useless in Paul’s eyes. They are needless in their current conditions, older, emotionally distraught, and have no professional skills. What use are they to a progressing society? The only skills they have are blood-thirst, and battlefield survival. WWI vets are basically unessential to anything because they are leftovers of what as once a human. Paul was stripped down and gutted of anything other than just flesh and bone. He had no dreams, no love, no aspirations, no feeling. He just was. The people surrounding Paul would have no idea what it means to see no significance to self-existence or a future. “Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear” (Remarque, 1929, page 295).