Kemmerich is dead. Paul and his friends, including Kemmerich, joined the German army with excitement. There were going to defend their country, and become heroes. They would kill the enemy and then sleep well at night. The first two chapters of the book showed how much war changes people. Back home, death is horrifying and to many, unfathomable; at war, death is a normal thing. When Kemmerich was in the hospital and had his leg amputated, his long-time friends came to see him, and it seemed as if they only cared about the boots that he is going to leave behind. For most of us who have never been to war and never seen death first-hand, boots would be the last thing on our minds as a friend is painfully lying on his or her deathbed. In the harsh reality of war, however, the boys are forced to move on from the death of their friend, and if his pair of boots will alleviate some of the hardship they are facing, then is it wrong for them to desire them? These young men are forced to shake off the old ways of home and get used to a new world - the world of death and violence. The unsettling apathy of Kemmerich dying in the novel captures the normality of death in the bloody war.
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