We were in the same basic training platoon and were together for over two incredibly intense months. The guy on my left as we were being processed into the Army was named Mark Gorman.
We were lined up alphabetically in a huge formation. With hundreds of others I showed up at the induction station in Portland, OR on the morning of June 12, 1968. My view was strengthened further by being drafted during the Vietnam War. Hitler came to power and 70 million of this planet’s citizens ended up dying because of his perversion. It was Remarque’s admirable attempt, after seeing what was happening in Germany in the period between the two World Wars, to warn his country away from making the same mistake again.
Although told from the perspective of a German soldier it easily transfers over to being a story about all soldiers caught in that nightmare and in all future wars. It is by far the best anti-war novel I’ve ever read. My favorite book in high school was Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front – a story about the reality of being an ordinary soldier in the trenches of World War I. I’m not saying war is never justified (World War II for example where we had no choice but to defend ourselves) but that we are far too casual with the lives of others and the cruel toll such events take on all of us. I have probably always had a strong anti-war view of the follies of needlessly killing our fellow man. Q: Where did you receive inspiration for THE RED LINE?
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