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The Psychological Trauma In All Quiet On The Western Front

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War Prompt War always has an impact no matter who is involved. This can be a good thing to the nations and groups who win the war, or a bad thing for those on the other side, but the men involved on either end are forced to endure specific things that affect them for life. The psychological trauma on soldiers not only affects them when in war, but also afterwards when they are in society. Experiencing an event or taking part in an act leaves scars on these people who sometimes have to live with it for the rest of their lives. What a soldier experiences and sees during war leaves them with traumatic memories even though they may have not taken part in it. Many of them find a disconnect of moral ambiguity in which All Quiet on the Western Front …show more content…

Killing an innocent person is something that sticks with soldiers for the rest of their life, and it is sadly praised in many cases like in Jonathan Lucas story where he “laughed because (he) was insulting him and felt powerful that (he) killed someone… But it was also false bravado” (Lucas, paragraph 4). This state of enjoyment in the taking of an innocent life sounds like something only a mentally insane individual would find excitement in, but because of the circumstances, these normal american men laugh at what they had just done. It’s an act that will mentally be stained inside their heads and for many, causes PTSD. Even just killing the enemy in a situation leaves traumatic memories as is the case for Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front where he is faced with a french man and he “strikes madly at home, and feel only how the body suddenly goes limp… I want to stab him again… but have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot anymore lift my hand against him” (Remarque 216). The excerpt shows a man doing everything natural to protect himself, but ends up feeling terrible about it. If Paul ended up surviving the war, he would not forget this day and feel guilty for the rest of the life he lives; as would any man. Psychological warfare could even cause a man to stop doing and stop fighting after a traumatic experience as John Sheppard is a victim to with his “behavior became erratic, and soon he refused to go on patrol” (Paragraph 3). People in war have moments that just break them, and this was his moment. There is really no good solution to stop someone from having a quitting point because it is all psychological. Taking part in an undesirable act can mentally destroy a man just as much and if not more than just seeing it

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