Status Updates From 西线无战事

“But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was the abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought if your hand-grenades, if your bayonet, if your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late.”