Section 2 Summary

This section begins with the phrase, "When you're in, you're in."

Bardamu finds himself in the army at the age of twenty, fighting a war he does not believe in or understand. Bardamu says he has no idea why the Germans are shooting at him, since he has always been friendly and polite to them. To him, it seems the whole world has been caught up in some new feeling that he does not share. Bardamu is curious about their motives, but in the end, his only desire is to escape. Bardamu wonders if he might be the only coward among the others, who he calls 'stark raving heroic madmen' in their desire to demolish everything on two continents.

The frenzied rush of men astonishes him while they race about on horses, in cars and on motorcycles, hordes of them always crouching, digging...