Johnny Got His Gun. by risa
He awakened as a man awakens out of a drunk- hazy brained and foggy swimming slowly and painfully back toward reality. He awakened tapping with his head against the pillow. The tapping by now had become so much a part of awakening that the first glimmer of consciousness found him already tapping and later on when exhaustion overcame him and his mind began to grow dim and sleep crept over his body he was still tapping. He lay there not thinking of anything his brain aching and his head throbbing against the pillow. SOS. Help.
And then his mind sharpened and began to think instead of only to feel he stopped his tapping and lay still. Something very important was happening. He had a new day nurse.
He could tell the minute the door opened and she began to walk across the room. Her footsteps were light where those of his regular day nurse his old efficient fast-working day nurse were heavy. It took five steps to bring this new one to his bedside. That meant she was shorter than the regular nurse and probably younger toobecause the very vibration of her footsteps seemed gay and bouyant. It was the first time within his memory that the regular day nurse had not appeared to take care of him.
He lay very still very tense. This was like learning a new secret like opening a new world. Without a moment’s hesitation the new nurse threw back his covers. And then like all of the others before her she stood quietly for a moment beside his bed. He knew she must have been told what to expect. Yet the sight of him was probably so much worse than any description that she could do nothing for that first instant but stare. Then instead of hastily throwing the covers back over him as some of the others did or running out of the room or standing weeping and letting the tears fall against his chest she put her hand against his forehead. No one had ever done it before in just this way. Perhaps no one had been able to do it. It was like putting a hand near an open cancer something so terrible and sickening that no one could endure the thought much less the action. Yet this new nurse with the light happy step was not afraid.
this is a quote from Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. here’s some ressources on military injuries in Iraq, and on the state of war amputees in a few other times and places.
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