Walking down to Bellingham Bay / Thinking about Luis Bunuel and Dalton Trumbo

Johnny Got His Gun and Dalton Trumbo are still on my mind. After re-reading Johnny Got His Gun, for the first time since Richard recommended it while he was in Vietnam in 1970, I've been checking out related DVDs from the public library. A few days ago, I watched "Trumbo"(2007) and was reminded that Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplays for "Exodus" and "Spartacus." Yesterday I watched "Johnny Got His Gun" on DVD. Although it was first released in 1971, this DVD with additional features was released in 2009. I don't remember seeing "Johnny Got His Gun" when it was released on September 22, 1971, but I am guessing that Richard did see it.

Richard's last weeks of life in a VA hospital in spring of 2008 appeared to be much like those of Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's 1971 film, "Johnny Got His Gun."

In 1971, when Dalton Trumbo directed "Johnny Got His Gun," he added to and changed the story from what he had written in his book in 1939. Scenes with Joe Bonham's contemplations on Jesus were written by Luis Bunuel.

Of all the changes and additions that strengthened an already powerful testament against war, what stood out for me was the scene near the end of the film where the military hospital doctors and staff were standing at Joe Bonham's bedside after Joe had finally been able to communicate with them by banging his head on his pillow in Morse code, "S.O.S. Help me." The commanding officer had asked Joe what he wanted, and Joe had replied, and the commanding officer had denied Joe's requests. At that point, Joe began to bang his head against his pillow, saying "Kill me" over and over again in Morse code.

The commanding officer then turned to the chaplain and said, "Don't you have some message for him, Padre?"

The priest shook his head.

The officer said, "You could at least tell him to put his faith in God, couldn't you?"

The priest said, "I will pray for him for the rest of my days, but I will not risk testing his faith against your stupidity."

The officer said, "Well, you're a hell of a priest, aren't you?"

The priest said, "He is a product of your profession, not mine," and walked out of the hospital room.

Now that is a mysterious statement. The koan here is, "What is the product of the priest's profession?" Certainly Dalton Trumbo had given some thought to that when he wrote that scene and asked Luis Bunuel to write words for Jesus to say earlier in the film.

The two following paragraphs are from a Wikipedia article about Luis Bunuel:

In a 1960 interview with Michele Manceaux in L'Express, Buñuel famously declared: "Thank God I'm an atheist."

However, he repudiated this statement in a 1977 article in The New Yorker. "I'm not a Christian, but I'm not an atheist, either," he said. "I'm weary of hearing that accidental old aphorism of mine, 'I'm an atheist, thank God.' It's outworn. Dead leaves. In 1951, I made a small film called "Mexican Bus Ride," about a village too poor to support a church and a priest. The place was serene, because no one suffered from guilt. It's guilt we must escape from, not God."

I'm feeling Richard's serene presence today. It is nearly four years since he died. We are not suffering from guilt. We are too poor to support a church and a priest. We do not walk alone anymore. I think that the word God is a koan.

Johnny Got His Gun, Revisited /A man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things / The Heart Sutra

If you'd like to know more about this trackpad drawing, read here.
When I did that drawing in December 2007, I had no idea that Richard had experienced a brainstem stroke and had been in a VA hospital for three months and that he was painting again.

Nearly two weeks ago, while in savasana (the corpse pose) at the end of my home yoga practice, thinking of Richard's last breath, I suddenly remembered Dalton Trumbo's anti-war novel written in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun.

A few days ago, the $7.99 copy I had ordered arrived at our local independent bookstore. It had been my intention to read the edition I had read in 1970 at the urging of Richard, who had read the book while in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1970. I didn't want the edition with the foreward by Cindy Sheehan because I had checked out our local library's audiobook version of Johnny Got His Gun, read by William Dufris, and been unable to listen to that particular man's irritating voice read a book that I had read so long ago and had "heard" in Richard's voice. William Dufris' reading of Cindy Sheehan's foreward was particularly annoying to me. I wanted the edition with the introduction by Dalton Trumbo. I thought that was what I was ordering.

It turns out that, for the edition I had bought, the publisher had removed the introduction by Dalton Trumbo and inserted an introduction by Cindy Sheehan. With further Google research, I found that in 1991, there was an edition with an introduction by Ron Kovic, a well-known Vietnam veteran who felt the book told his story. That introduction was followed by Dalton Trumbo's original introduction from 1939 and an addendum by Dalton Trumbo in 1970. If you'd like to read those introductions, take a look here.

Now I'm puzzled. This is getting curiouser and curiouser. Dalton Trumbo was alive when the introduction by Ron Kovic was added and clearly chose Ron Kovic to write an introduction.

Why were those two introductions removed and Cindy Sheehan's introduction inserted? Why not just add Cindy Sheehan's introduction to this newer addition?

On the publishing history page of my $7.99 copy, it reads:

This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardback edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED

and:

Introduction copyright © 1970 by Dalton Trumbo.

What is going on here?

It was wrenching to reread Johnny Got His Gun. When we read it the first time, Richard and I were 20 years old, in the midst of the Vietnam War. I am convinced now that Richard was remembering that book in the last few days of his life when he was blind in one eye, not focusing well with the other eye, and barely able to move.

From page 83 of Johnny Got His Gun:

He was blind.

It was funny how calm he was. He was quiet just like a storekeeper taking spring inventory and saying to himself I see I have no eyes better put that down in the order book. He had no legs and no arms and no ears and no nose and no mouth and no tongue. What a hell of a dream. It must be a dream. Of course sweet god it’s a dream. He’d have to wake up or he’d go nuts. Nobody could live like that.

From page 240-241:

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 ... He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality ...

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 the would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight ...

From the Heart Sutra:

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell no taste, no touch, no object of mind, no realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.

Cindy Sheehan's introduction ends with the words: "Why, why, why?"

















(cover of first edition, 1939)

"... when the heart is right ..." / spontaneous thoughts in savasana / "I believe in the impossible."

Ch'ui the draftsman
could draw more perfect circles freehand
than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth
spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
was meanwhile free and without concern
with what he was doing.

No application was needed
his mind was perfectly simple
and knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits
the foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
the belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
"for" and "against" are forgotten.

No drives, no compulsions,
no needs, no attractions:
then your affairs
are under control.
You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right
and you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
is to forget the right way
and forget that the going is easy.
- Chuang Tzu
(Source: Whiskey River)

While in savasana (the relaxation pose that is also called the corpse pose and is done at the end of a yoga practice) yesterday, my mind drifted to Richard's last breath. Each time I breathed out, I began to think of Richard's last breath, and then for some reason I spontaneously remembered a book he had read in Vietnam and had encouraged me to read while he was there. It was called Johnny Got His Gun, an anti-war novel written by Dalton Trumbo. When I finished my yoga practice, I found this:



My grandfather served as a doctor in France in World War II. He was a witness to those images of war.

Then I found this about Johnny Got His Gun on Wikipedia:

"Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body.

Joe attempts suicide by suffocation, but finds that he had been given a tracheotomy which he can neither remove nor control. At first Joe wishes to die, but later decides that he desires to be placed in a glass box and toured around the country in order to show others the true horrors of war. After he successfully communicates with his doctors by banging his head on his pillow in Morse code (am's italics and am's note: The Morse code he signaled was S.O.S. or Help!!!), however, he realizes that neither desire will be granted; it is implied that he will live the rest of his natural life in his condition."
(Source)

In Richard's last days, he was a prisoner in his body in a VA Hospital as a result of a brain stem stroke that occurred while he was drinking. He had been using drugs and alcohol since his return from Vietnam in 1970. The hospital staff had his hands tied down so that he could not remove the various tubes that were keeping him alive. When visitors were with him, his hands were untied. He had a tracheotomy tube and was on a respirator as well as a feeding tube. He had been unable to speak since the stroke seven months previously and had lost his limited ability to write in the previous week. He was blind in one eye. He was emaciated. He was only able to move with great effort but continued to try to remove tubes unless his hands were tied down. At one point, while I sat next to him, holding his hand, just before the last time I saw him alive and was about to leave, he lifted his head and began banging it against his pillow. Until yesterday, I would have said that Richard's last words were earlier that week, when he signaled "Thumbs up" to me, but now I am wondering if Richard was remembering Joe Bonham and signaling, "Help!!!"

This brought tears and dismay and confusion to me as well as healing. I felt close to Richard and could feel his presence and his words, "I love you. Always will." As I am writing this, I hear his words "Please take all my love and go on with your life."

This is part of my grieving and healing process. I know I am not alone. It is important for us to tell our stories related to war and its aftermath. I am sharing my experience, strength and hope for a future where there is an end to war. I hope that in telling my story, someone else will know that she or he is not alone.

"I believe in the impossible. You know that I do."
(Bob Dylan's lyrics, taken out of context. The words have a life of their own)

My thoughts are never far from veterans and their families. My thoughts are never far from all those who are still in the midst of war in Afghanistan.

Sabine's words keep coming to mind: "Live all you can: It's a mistake not to."

Update: Lots of synchronicity going on in the last 24 hours. Something of Richard's energy is here today with me, encouraging me to go on with my life, beginning with laughter. His heart is right.

I wasn't looking for the video below, but it came up when I went to YouTube after writing about war and grief and was trying to figure out why the video that I had embedded in my post was showing up as only a black rectangle.

Richard had a splendid sense of humor. He loved this movie that he watched with other veterans at the VA hospital in 2001 and wanted me to see it, too:



"When the heart is right
'for' and 'against' are forgotten."