In 1916, Remarque, a third-year student at a teachers' training college, was drafted into the German army. He served on the Western front and was several times wounded. Profoundly changed by the war, Remarque returned to the college after the peace was resumed in 1918, but the civilian life seemed almost unreal and ridiculous after what he and his friends experienced during the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maria_Remarque

"At the age of eighteen he went as a soldier to the front lines of World War I, where he was wounded several times."