The students go as spectators, and though they all come out, some are not quite the same as when they went in. Freshman Ji Young Park reports weeping as she read All Quiet on the Western Front . The particular and individual perspective paints a starker picture of war's meaning than does the broad, single-sweep brush stroke of historical overview. Jones portrays Charlie Company's first killing when Private Bead goes off alone to relieve himself. Squatting with pants down around his ankles, he spots a Japanese soldier moving through the trees who suddenly turns and charges with the bayonet on the end of his rifle extended.
Bead manages to elude the bayonet and bring down the enemy soldier.
Then he threw the rifle from him and fell down on his hands and knees and began to vomit. When the dead soldier is discovered, the men admire Bead and convince him that the killing was justified. It is, after all, war. Essentially, they interpret the experience for him, and he eventually adopts that meaning, even if he does so doubtfully at first. It hadn't been like that at all.