PAUL BAUMER

Paul Baumer

I am Paul Baumer, I was 19 year-old when I enrolled in the army. I used to write poems before the war and enjoyed literature. I realized how this war had changed me when I went back home to my family. I felt disconnected from  my mother, my sister, and my father. I did not want to be around my family. I wanted to go back to the front because I felt that I belonged there with my comrades and not in this house. I wished I could tell my mother what she wanted to hear but I could not. When I killed Gerard Duval, I had the revelation that those soldiers whom we were fighting against were not different from us. I felt guilty when I murdered him but I knew that I should not blame myself because that was my duty. I do not know what I should do after this war and I do not know who I am anymore.