"In the ambulance, the bumps were so awful and the pain so intense that it would have been a relief to pass out. But he didn’t. He was still alive, writhing on his hook."
Collins is lucky to survive the ambulance ride. The narrator has to endure watching his companion suffer the entire time, wishing that his friend would pass out. The ride symbolizes the futility of escape from this war. Even as one of the wounded, Collins must endure more torture and danger.
"Me, I had imagination in spades, though. I saw myself as a corpse, swept into this stream of fools against my will along with thousands, millions of other corpses, and I didn’t like it one little bit."
The narrator knows that most of the men around him will die. As he enters the war, he feels like he's losing himself. From this point onward, he has accepted his likely fate. He can recognize the perils, but he looks at his fellow soldiers and sees that they don't know yet, but they're also destined to die.
"The Italians also sent men to the firing squad 'to set an example.' I couldn't make up my mind which was more appalling: the mining war or the mountain war."
This excerpt sheds light on the diversity of approach to military discipline. For instance, the Italian army readily embraces corporal punishment. They motivate their soldiers with fear. As an American, the narrator is even more disturbed by this approach when he considers how he's seen Austrians and Germans discipline their soldiers. Just witnessing these strategies reminds him why the war is happening.
"We found out that Brugnon hadn’t come back from leave. He’d hanged himself in the stairwell of his building, on rue des Gâtines. He left a note to say he couldn’t take it any more and asked us to count him out. We accepted it… Who were we to judge?”
Brugnon's note indicates a sense of obligation to his fellow soldiers. They're all in the same boat, but he chose to quit. His suicide is a betrayal to his companions as well as himself. Although the narrator decides to respect Brugnon's decision, he arrives at acceptance by abnegating his own ability to make that same decision. Maybe a similar fate is in his own future.
