The Human Instinct

           Simple acts can give us a lot of information about the topic at hand; in this case it's about war.  Through the acts of stealing Kemmerich's watch and plans of taking his boots we can tell what war has done to us. War causes us to think about what can benefit us if we do certain acts. It's natural for people to fend for themselves when they are faced with the harsh reality of the world. These acts can be seem as crimes from people but, to the soldiers on the battlefield this seems natural to do. These acts may seem selfish and extremely rude but put yourself in the boots of those brave men.
           How is stealing of one's property be seen as beneficial to ones need; and out of all things, it's a watch. In this situation Kemmerich is not only wounded but he is also unconscious on the battlefield, this gives the appearance that Kemmerich is most likely going to die in a matter of minutes. A soldier comes across what seems to be a soon to be dead man and notices he has a watch. The soldier assumes that Kemmerich won't be needing the watch because a dead person wouldn't have use of a watch. This causes the soldier to take the watch from him, in his mind he simply looted a corpse for his own benefits.
           Müeller is in the same position as the soldier that took Kemmerich's watch. Kemmerich is once again in a state that soon show's he's a dead man but this time he's basically on his death bed ready to pass away. Müeller current has on a pair of old beaten up boots that causes his foot pain while Kemmerich is on his death bed with a pair of boots that have more value than Müller's pair. Kemmerich has a amputated leg meaning that he doesn't need the singular quality boot. Müller can gain from taking his boots for himself and he doesn't want a good pair of boots to be thrown away when he can just use them.
           The war caused these men to try and gain from one's lost. A soldier simply took a watch from a dead man and didn't blink a eye. Müller wanted to see the bright side if his friend passed away which was him getting a better pair of boots. They naturally tried to gain from this instead of letting things go to waste. They were making sure that nothing was being tossed aside when they can clearly benefit from this. To sum this all up, we naturally try to make a blight into blessing no matter how uncivilized it may seem.