How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Three or four big guys famous guys who still had arms and legs and who could see and talk and smell and taste had come into his room and they had pinned a medal on him […] That was all they ever had time to do just run around putting medals on guys and feeling important and smug about it. (13.13)
Watch out, here comes one incarnation of the notorious Big Guys. They don't seem all that sinister—after all, they're giving Joe a medal—but take a second to compare these guys and Joe. The guy who gets the medal also gets his limbs blown off; the guys who don't get a medal to keep their limbs. Which would you rather have: a medal or your arms and legs and face?
Quote #8
We're all going to be killed that's why we're here. Christ he's already dead and the big Swede over there is going to catch flu and die in camp and you in the corner you're going to get blown so damned high nobody'll ever had a souvenir and me I'm going to get buried in a trench cave-in and smother now isn't that a hell of a way to die? (16.13)
Get ready for some not-so-fun facts: During World War I, the number of casualties (not including civilians) on both sides totaled around 10 million; roughly one-third of the casualties were due to disease; about 7.8 million people were taken prisoner or went missing in action and were presumed dead, which is probably what Joe's family assumed happened to him (source). So basically, even though there were a lot of different ways to go, the odds were stacked against you coming back. And keep in mind that the low number of U.S. casualties is due to the fact that the U.S. joined the war really late in the game.
Quote #9
People wouldn't learn much about anatomy from him but they would learn all there was to know about war. That would be a great thing to concentrate war in one stump of a body and to show it to people so they could see the difference between a war that's in newspaper headlines and liberty loan drives and a war that is fought out lonesomely in the mud somewhere a war between a man and a high explosive shell. (19.12)
What does the average civilian imagine war to be? Also, take a moment to notice that powerful image in the last line: "a war between a man and a high explosive shell." People fighting hand-to-hand or even with guns is one thing, but a man and a shell isn't really a battle at all, is it? It's about as unbalanced as you can get. We pity the lonesome guy who finds himself in that situation—and there were a lot of lonesome guys in that situation during World War I. It's another way in which World War I seems to represent a turning point when war and society start to become dehumanized.