Trumbo, Dalton: Johnny got his gun

Johnny got his gun är en mycket uppmärksammad anti-krigsbok av amerikanen Dalton Trumbo. Den utspelar sig i huvudet på vårdpaketet Joe, lemlästad i Första Världskriget kriget. Han kan inte röra sig, han kan inte se, han kan inte höra. Genom intensiv tankeverksamhet, förnimmelser av vibrationer, tryck och värme mot huden försöker han skapa mening i tillvaron. Var är jag? Är jag vaken? Sover jag? Är det dröm eller verklighet just nu? Värme tyder på att solen är uppe, alltså är det natt, samband med sjuksysterbesök, dagarna kan räknas! Joe överlever genom att minnas sitt liv, upplevelser, familj, smaker, vänner, röster. Med tiden kommer han på att han skulle kunna kommunicera genom att slå huvudet upp och ner i morsekod. Dag efter dag går, han slår huvudet, han blir medicinerad mot sina ryck. Tillslut får han kontakt! Någon förstår honom! Isolationen är bruten. Men Joe nöjer sig inte med det. Han kräver ett slut på krig. Han kräver att få tala till människor. Han kräver att få synas i krigsförande parlament. Han kräver sitt liv och andras. Han får till svar att "det är emot reglementet". Joe tystas, allt är förgäves. Men boken slutar i en varning för alla herrar, krigshetsare och politiker. Nästa gång är det ni som dör! Inte en gång till... Ni tvingar oss ta vapen, men vi riktar dem. Vi ska inte dö.

Boken gavs ut 1939. Boken är filmatiserad.

Den grymma slutklämmen i boken

He was tapping why? why? why?

Why didn’t they want him? Why were they shutting the lid of the coffin against him? Why didn’t they want him to speak? Why didn’t they want him to be seen? Why didn’t they want him to be free? It was five maybe six years now since he had been blown out of the world. The war must be over by now. No war could last that long killing so many people there weren’t enough peo­ple to kill. If the war was over then all the dead had been buried and all the prisoners had been released. Why shouldn’t he be released too? Why not unIess they fig­ured him as one of the dead and if that was true why didn’t they kill him why didn’t they put a stop to his suffering? Why should he be a prisoner? He had committcd no crime. What right had they to keep him? What pos­sible reason could they have to be so inhuman to him?

Why? why? why?

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 inta 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 wholc dead terrible world that made a move or a sound we re 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 weIl 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 with out 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. lt 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 weIl 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 peaee 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 in to 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.