these are the last few paragraphs of johnny got his gun. along with the whole of chapter ten, i really like them, so i decided to throw them up here as well...
He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight that war they would need men and if the men saw the future they wouldn't fight. So they were masking the future they were keeping the future a soft quiet deadly secret. They knew that if all the little people all the little guys saw the future they would begin to ask questions. They would ask questions and they would find answers and they would say to the guys who wanted them to fight they would say you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make the bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed.
If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets
to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us.
They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food
the guys who makes clothes and paper and houses and tiles the
guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning
high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen
different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and
shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no
it will not be us who die. It will be you.
It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us
against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another
cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man
who works you who would have one human being who wants only to
live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember
this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember
this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors
of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything
else in your lives.
We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel.
But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you
try to range us one against the other we will know what to do.
If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take
you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We
will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend
our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the
other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent
it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it
and we know it.
Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us slogans
and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and
we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten
thousand not a million not ten million not a hundred million but
a billion two billion of us all around the world we will have
the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns
and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we
will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat
and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in
tranquility in security in decency and peace. You plan the wars
you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will
point the gun.