"And then suddenly he saw..."

[WilliamPitt]

And then suddenly he saw. He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it. He had seen the airplanes flying in the sky he had seen the skies of the future filled with them black with them and now he saw the horror beneath. He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality. He saw a world of dead fathers and crippled brothers and crazy screaming sons. He saw a world of armless mothers clasping headless babies to their breasts trying to scream out their grief from throats that were cancerous with gas. He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky and far off against the horizon the thunder of the big guns and the puffs that rose from barren tortured earth when their shells exploded.

That was it he had it he understood it now he had told them his secret and in denying him they had told him theirs.

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 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 what slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make 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 make 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 the 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 millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of 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 tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

-- "Johnny Got His Gun," Dalton Trumbo

[AuntPatsy]

1. Hmm it lost me, the way this is written leaves the reader IMO trying to grab the scattered pages

Of an idea, you have an idea, a guess of what the author is headed towards , trouble is when we get there with him we come to a Y in the road wondering which turn to take that will keep us going on the right direction..

JMO

[WilliamPitt]

3. Your loss.

Do you know the story?

[AuntPatsy]

5. Never heard it but I would like to understand? Wasn't trying to be rude or appear an idiot, it flew

Way over my head

[WilliamPitt]

7. Johnny Got His Gun

is probably the most important anti-war book ever written. The main character, whose words appear in the OP, is a World War I soldier brutally wounded by an exploding shell. No arms, no legs, no eyes, no mouth, no ears, no face...but a perfectly functioning brain trapped in a ruined body. By the end, he realizes his situation, and taps out SOS KILL ME on his pillow with his head in Morse Code, but is denied that relief because it would be detrimental to the war effort.

These paragraphs above are his final manifesto, the last lines in the book.

If you read nothing else, read this book. It was banned before WWII, Korea and Vietnam, for fear it would foster anti-war sentiment. For his part, Trumbo was on the Hollywood Blacklist, and lost a huge portion of his career. He wrote the script for Roman Holiday, but someone else got the credit, because the movie would never have been released with his name attached to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Trumbo

Go.

[AuntPatsy]

8. I feel horrified for being a bit dismissive, I will take the time, book marking for later viewing..

Thank you for not cutting me down to size, I feel as if I deserved it

[WilliamPitt]

9. It was close.

Enjoy...sort of. It's a grueling read.

[AuntPatsy]

12. Again, appreciate the restraint

[AuntPatsy]

13. I had some quiet time to do a bit if research but it's obvious I need to read the book

In order to garner a better understanding...

I have a feeling though that it will be time well spent, I just need to find the time, being a grandmother to 7 wears out not only theses old bones but has appeared to wither my once strongly held desire to delve into such types of literature..

Silly as it seems and considering my present style of writing as well as present knowledge, I once had dreams of becoming a writer, now don't laugh too hard....

[WilliamPitt]

14. No one laughing here.

The book is very stream-of-consciousness, which can be draining. The subject matter, especially with an understanding of the context, is grueling, as I said.

It is time well spent. So take your time.

[Tace]

2. Very Powerful Writing

"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."

That's not a threat. It's a promise. --Tace

[louis-t]

4. Is that the WW1 story where the soldier gets his arms legs and

face blown off? Read it in High school. Amazing piece of literature.

[trumad]

6. Story of the Pats/Phins game this Sunday.

[gratuitous]

10. Nice, but . . .

We seem to have far too many people cheering on those who make war, celebrating death and dismemberment, especially by remote control. The guns aren't in our hands anymore; they're carefully parceled out to the True Believers who have been well schooled in the mores of the High Church of Redemptive Violence. The guns have been replaced with benign-looking computer joysticks, raining down missiles and bombs on unsuspecting targets without warning. People who can't fight back, who can't get away. And we cheer. Anyone who doesn't cheer is told in no uncertain terms to get with the program, this is the way of the world, and if we're not killing them then they would for sure be killing us. There's no gray areas, no shadows, no nuances. Just lines. Be sure you're on the correct side.

[BrotherIvan]

11. Gotta read this

And anyone interested should watch the documentary Trumbo to learn more about the writer.

[NightWatcher]

15. Here's the video for Metallica's One (with movie clips)

The song kicks ass and is almost as gripping as the book and movie.