this is the tenth chapter of a book i had to read for english class in my senior year of high school. it called johnny got his gun by dalton trumbo. it is an excellent book which has had many things based on it. Metallica's One for instance. i recommend this book to anyone and everyone whether you are for or against the military. thanks for reading all of this, it sucked to type out, but i felt that i needed to.
Lying on your back without anything to do and anywhere to go was kinda of like being on a high hill far away from noise and people. It was like being on a camping trip all by yourself. You had plenty of time to think. You had time to figure things out. Things you'd never thought of before. Things like for example going to war. You were so completely alone on your hill that noise and people didn't enter in your figuring of things at all. Your figured only for yourself without considering a single little thing outside yourself. It seemed that you thought clearer and that your answers made more sense. And even if they didn't make sense it didn't matter because you weren't ever going to be able to do anything about them anyhow.
He thought here you are Joe Bonham lying like a side of beef all
the rest of your life and for what? Someone tapped you on the
shoulder and said come along son we're going to war. So you went.
But why? In any other deal even like buying a car or running on
errand you had the right to say what's in it for me? Otherwise
you'd be buying bad cars for too much money or running errands
for fools and starving to death. It was a kind of duty you owed
yourself that when anybody said come on son do this or do that
you should stand up and say look mister why should I do this for
who am I doing it and what am I going to get out of it in the
end? But when a guy comes along and says here come with me and
risk your life and maybe die or be crippled why then you've got
no rights. You haven't even the right to say yes or no or I'll
think it over. There are plenty of laws to protect guys' money
even in war time but there's nothing on the books that says a
man's life's his own.
Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out
and fight for liberty and so they went and got killed without
ever once thinking about liberty. And what kind of liberty were
they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty?
Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones
all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased
whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and
you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell
does liberty mean anyhow? It's just a word like house or table
or any other word. Only is a special kind of word. A guy says
house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says
come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty.
He can't prove the thing that he's talking about so how in the
hell can he be telling you to fight for it?
No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches
to fight for liberty was a goddam fool and the guy who got him
there was a liar. Next time anybody came gabbling to him about
liberty-what did he mean next time? There wasn't going to be any
next time for him. But the hell with that. If there could be a
next time and somebody said let's fight for liberty he would say
mister my life is important. I'm not a fool and when I swap my
life for liberty I've got to know in advance what liberty is and
whose idea of liberty we're talking about and just how much of
that liberty we're going to have. And what's more mister are you
as much interested in this liberty as you want me to be? And maybe
too much liberty will be as bad as too little liberty and I think
you're a goddam fourflusher talking through your hat and I've
already decided that I like the liberty I've got right here the
liberty to walk and see and hear and talk and eat and sleep with
my girl. I think I like that liberty better than fighting for
a lot of things we won't get and ending up without any liberty
at all. Ending up dead and rotting before my life is even begun
good or ending up like a side of beef. Thank you mister. You fight
for liberty. Me I don't care for some.
Hell's fire guys had always been fighting for liberty. America
fought a war for liberty in 1776. lots of guys died. And in the
end does America have any more liberty than Canada or Australia
who didn't fight at all? Maybe so I'm not arguing I'm just asking.
Can you look at a guy and say he's an American who fought for
his liberty and anybody can see he's a very different guy from
a Canadian who didn't? No by god you can't and that's that. So
maybe a lot of guys with wives and kids died in 1776 when they
didn't need to die at all. They're dead now anyway. Sure but that
doesn't do any good. A guy can think of being dead a hundred years
from now and he doesn't mind it. but to think of being dead tomorrow
morning and to be dead forever to be nothing but dust and stink
in the earth is that liberty?
They were always fighting for something the bastards and if anyone
dared say the hell with fighting it's all the same each war is
like the other and nobody gets good out of it why they hollered
coward. If they weren't fighting for liberty they were fighting
for independence or democracy or freedom or decency or honor or
their native land or something else that didn't mean anything.
The war was to make the world safe for democracy for the little
countries for everybody. If the war was over now then the world
must be safe for democracy. Was it? And what kind of democracy?
And how much? And whose?
Then there was this freedom the little guys were always getting
killed for. Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from
work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please
mister give us a bill of sale on the freedom before we go out
and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly so we
know in advance what we're getting killed for and give us also
a first mortgage on something as security so we can be sure after
we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we
bargained for.
And take decency. Everybody said America was fighting a war for
the triumph of decency. But whose idea of decency? And decency
for who? Speak up and tell us what decency is. Tell us how much
better a decent dead man feels than an indecent live one. Make
a comparison there in facts like houses and tables. Make it in
words we can understand. And don't talk about honor. The honor
of a Chinese or an Englishman or an African negro or an American
or a Mexican? Please all you guys who want to fight to preserve
our honor let us know what the hell honor is. Maybe the world
doesn't like it. maybe the South Sea Islanders like their honor
better.
For Christ sake give us things to fight for we can see and feel
and pin down and understand. No more highfalutin words that mean
nothing like native land. Motherland fatherland homeland native
land. It's all the same. What the hell good to you is your native
land after you're dead? Whose native land is it after you're dead?
If you get killed fighting for your native land you've bought
a pig in a poke. You've paid for something you'll never collect.
And when they couldn't hook the little guys into fighting for
liberty or freedom or democracy or independence or decency or
honor they tried the women. Look at the dirty Huns they would
say look at them how they rape the beautiful French and Belgian
girls. So the little guy got bewildered and he signed up and in
a little while a shell hit him and his life splattered out of
him in red meat pulp and he was dead. Dead for another word and
all the fierce old bats of the D.A.R. get out and hurrah themselves
hoarse over his grave because he died for womanhood.
Now it might be that a guy would risk getting killed if his women
were being raped. But if he did why he was only striking a bargain.
He was simply saying that according to the way he felt at the
time the safety of his women was worth more than his own life.
But there wasn't anything heroic about it. It was a straight deal
his life for something he valued more. It was more or less like
any other deal a man might make. But when you change your women
to all the women in the world why you begin to defend women in
bulk. And by that time you're fighting for a word again.
When armies begin to move and flags wave and slogans pop up watch
out little guy because it's somebody else's chestnuts in the fire
not yours. It's words you're fighting for and you're not making
an honest deal your life for something better. You're being noble
and after you're killed the thing you traded your life for won't
do you any good and chances are it won't do anybody else any good
either.
Maybe that's a bad way to think. There are lots of idealists around
who will say have we got so low that nothing is more precious
than life? Surely there are ideals worth fighting for even dying
for. If not then we are worse than the beasts of the field and
have sunk into barbarity. Then you say that's all right let's
be barbarous just so long as we don't have war. You keep your
ideals just as long as they don't cost me my life. And they say
but surely life isn't as important as principle. Then you say
oh no? Maybe not yours but mine is. What the hell is principle?
Name it and you can have it.
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 newspapers and legislatures and
congress. 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.
Hmmmm.
But what do the dead say?
Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single on of the
millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and
say by god I'm glad I'm dead because death is always better than
dishonor? Did they say I'm glad I died to make the world safe
for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty?
Did any of them ever say it's good to think I got my guts blown
out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look
at me I'm dead but I died for decency and that's better than being
alive? Did any of them ever say here I am I've been rotting for
two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your
native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and
I'm happy see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?
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. If a man says death before dishonor
he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn't know what death
is. He isn't able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn't
know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death
before dishonor let him go ahead and die. But all the little guys
who are too busy to fight should be left alone. And all the guys
who say death before dishonor is pure bull the important thing
is life before death they should be left alone too. Because the
guys who say life isn't worth living without some principle so
important you're willing to die for it seems they are all nuts.
And the guys who say you'll see there'll come a time you cant
escape you're going to have to fight and die because it'll mean
your very life why they are also nuts. They are talking like fools.
They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying
that a man will have to die in order to protect his life. If you
agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your
life you aren't alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing
like that? A man doesn't say I will starve myself to keep from
starving. He doesn't say I will spend all my money in order to
save my money. He doesn't say I will burn my house down in order
to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die
for the privilege of living? There ought to be at least as much
common sense about living and dying as there is about going to
the grocery store and buying a loaf of bread.
All the guys who died all the five million or seven million or
ten million who went out and died to make the world safe for democracy
to make the world safe for words without meaning how did they
feel about it just before they died? How did they feel as they
watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they feel when
the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did
they feel as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight
in the face and saw him come and take them? If the thing they
were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was
also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the
last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully
important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with
all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing
you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy
and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and
the stars and stripes forever?
You're goddam right they didn't.
They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot
the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for.
They thought about things a man can understand. They die yearning
for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of
a mother a father a wife a child. They died with their hearts
sick for one more look at the place where they were born please
god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life.
They know what was important. They know that life was everything
and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought
in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live, I want
to live.
He ought to know.
He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth.
He was a dead man with a mind that could still think. He knew
all the answers the dead knew and couldn't think about. He could
speak for the dead because he was one of them. He was the first
of all soldiers who had died since the beginning of time who still
had a brain left to think with. Nobody could dispute with him.
Nobody could prove him wrong. Because nobody knew but he.
He could tell all these high-talking murdering sonsofbitches who
screamed for blood just how wrong they were. He could tell them
mister there's nothing worth dying for I know because I'm dead.
There's no word worth your life. I would rather work in a coal
mine deep under the earth and never see sunlight and eat crusts
and water and work twenty hours a day. I would rather do that
then be dead. I would trade democracy for life. I would trade
independence and honor and freedom and decency for life. I will
give you all these things and you give me the power to walk and
see and hear and breathe the air and taste my food. You take the
words. Give me back my life. I'm not asking for a happy life now.
I'm not asking for a decent life or an honorable life or a free
life. I'm beyond that. I'm dead so I'm simply asking for life.
To live. To feel. To be something that moves over the ground and
isn't dead. I know what death is and all you people who talk about
dying for words don't even know what life is.
There's nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor.
Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not
even if you're so great your name will never be forgotten and
who's that great? The most important thing is your life little
guys. 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.
Just say mister I'm sorry I got no time to die I'm too busy and
then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don't pay
any attention because it's your job to live not to die. If they
talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you
say mister you're a liar. Nothing is bigger than life. There's
nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground
and rotting? What's noble about never seeing sunshine again? What's
noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble
about being an idiot? What's noble about being dead? Because when
you're dead mister it's all over. It's the end. You're less then
a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a white
maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead mister and you
died for nothing.
You're dead mister.
Dead.
Trumbo, Dalton. Johnny Got His Gun. New York; Bantam Books, 1959. pgs 109-119
here are the last few paragraphs which i think fit in with chapter ten quite well.