"I am the enemy you killed, my friend."- explain the irony in the line in Owen's "Strange Meeting.

It's great that you picked this poet on a day like Remembrance Day (in Canada). The speaker states the famous line " I am the enemy you killed, my friend.” The statement is a paradox more than an irony. The soldier has more in common with his enemy on the battlefield than most other people he knows. They fight each other because they have been told to by people they do not even know yet they suffer the same hardships, fears and regrets. They are both enemy and friend.