Johnny Got His Gun

by Dalton Trumbo

The awful thing was that she had done something he couldn’t forgive her for ever no matter how much he wanted to. And he did want to. He did want to awfully. But he never could.

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He drowned without a struggle because he couldn’t struggle. He didn’t seem to have anything to struggle with. It was like a bad dream where someone is chasing you and you’re scared to death only there’s nothing to do about it because you can’t run. Your legs are stuck in concrete and you can’t move a muscle. That was why he drowned. He lay there under the water and thought what a shame it is to drown when you’re maybe only six or eight feet from air and sunlight.

When you have so little left why should you care if part of it is dying? You lie back. The darkness changes to another shade of darkness. Starless twilight and starless night.

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Tell us how much better a decent dead man feels than an indecent live one.

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You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congresses. That’s their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.

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Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can’t talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead.

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You’re worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don’t let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we’ve got to fight for liberty or whatever their word is there’s always a word.

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