I feel like this reading reaffirmed much of what we have already covered in the course.  The survivors of the war were left empty.  They lost so many that they knew and the whole country was in a crisis, fearing that there would not be enough men to continue sufficiently populating.  This is no different in The Sun Also Rises.  the drinking is heavy, the sleepless nights are many.  In order to numb themselves, Jake and the other characters drink themselves into oblivion.  The numbess is easier to handle than the reality of what was left after the war.  There was a loss of hope for the future in both the personal and reproductive aspect.

Jake is left impotent from a war incident that left him practically castrated.  This seems to be a symbol, however uncomfortable of one it may be, for the feelings of the nation.  So many young men's lives were lost.  As mentioned before, not only was there a deep emotional grief but there was also an anxiety that there simply were not enough functional, young men in order to continue on into the next generation.  And so, we are let into Jake's personal battles with his impotenance as a sort of mirror into the feelings of the rest of society.