6 / Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo, 1939
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 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. 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.
The above is an excerpt of the book, which became a movie directed by Trumbo (one of my favourite anti-war movies). Synopsis (Wikipedia):
A
young American soldier, hit by an
artillery shell on the
last day of
World War I,
lies in a
hospital
bed. He is a quadruple
amputee
who has also lost his
eyes,
ears,
mouth and
nose. He remains conscious and able to
reason, however - rendering him a prisoner in his own body. He tries to communicate
to his doctors - via
morse code - his wish that he be allowed to die, or put in a
freak-show as a
demonstration of the horrors of
war. In
the end, however, he realizes that the army will grant neither
wish, and will simply leave him in a state of living death.