In the summer of 1942, 15-year-old Guy Sajer, a citizen of German-occupied France, decides to join the German military to avoid being conscripted into forced labor. He first applies to the Luftwaffe, the German air force, but fails his tests and joins the infantry. After intense training, he boards a train for the Eastern Front. The soldiers march through Poland, noting that the ghetto (where Jews had been confined) is now mostly empty. He encounters soldiers about to be sent to the front in Russia, and continues training while dealing with hunger, exhaustion, and uncertainty about what is to come. He progresses as a marksman and learns how to drive various military vehicles, but becomes frustrated as time passes without any orders from above. He is asked to tow an 88 (a large artillery gun) to a nearby town, and after an arduous journey there, asks a member of the unit stationed in that town for a hot drink. His request gives away his French accent, and wandering around the grounds he stumbles into a group of men who smile at him, and he learns they are Russian prisoners: “I am astounded, and look again at the Russians […] so those are our enemies, who shoot at German soldiers, soldiers wearing uniforms like mine.