Johnny Got His Gun Sweatshirt

I can't remember anything Can't tell if this is true or a dream Deep down inside I feel to scream This terrible silence stops me – Metallica, “One”   Put the subject of war into the hands of a politician, and it invariably becomes a matter of pride and honor. This is fair to some extent, but war encapsulates far more than such lofty virtues. War is also horror the likes of which few will comprehend.   Novelists have done well to capture the inhumanity of war in the past. Heller’s Catch-22 explores the insanity and bureaucracy intrinsic to modern armed conflict. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five frames PTSD in the macabre light it deserves. Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down deals with the lives of civilians caught in the crossfire. And Tolstoy’s War and Peace must touch on some very poignant themes as well, but we haven’t read it because we keep our only copy in the trunk of our car for better traction in the wintertime.   But no novel about war has resonated with us quite so greatly as Trumbo’