What the author is trying to get across to the reader

War destroys the lives of everyone involved: those who are killed and those who survive and suffer for the rest of their lives. Remarque is trying to tell the truth about his own generation in the war. These men enlisted right out of school, before they had fully grown up. While they were at the Front, they had nothing to focus their thoughts on, nothing to hope for because they had nothing to return to back home. In other words, this generation of men, which Remarque was a part of, never had a fighting chance -no pun intended- at a normal, fulfilling life. When he kills his protagonist Paul, maybe it is Remarque’s way of saying that he wishes he himself had not been so unfortunate to survive only to be scarred eternally. Before he dies, Paul doesn’t even know what to think of his future because all he can believe in right now is war. He never had the chance to figure out who he is and what he really wants out of life.