It alls seems useless to them now. Education, wealth, or any other civilian factor has no significance at the front. They have no reference point to imagine a future outside the military or how to assimilate back into society.

The younger soldiers have different experiences from the older ones. The older men usually had prewar families and jobs. They thought of the war as an interruption in the normal cycle of life and that therefore thought that it eventually would end and they would return back to normal. In their past lives, they had real identities and roles to play within society. The younger men such as Paul and his mates were blank slates with no such real identities. They came into the war and the army when they were at the beginning of their adult lives. Still, they have none among their number have any definite answers to Muller's...
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