JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN
by Dalton Trumbo

World War I began like a summer festival—all billowing skirts and golden epaulets.
Millions upon millions cheered from the sidewalks while plumed imperial highnesses,
serenities, field marshals and other such fools paraded through the capital cities of Europe
at the head of their shining legions.
It was a season of generosity; a time for boasts, bands, poems, songs, innocent
prayers. It was an August made palpitant and breathless by the pre-nuptial nights of
young gentlemen-officers and the girls they left permanently behind them. One of the
Highland regiments went over the top in its first battle behind forty kilted bagpipers,
skirling away for all they were worth—at machine guns.
Nine million corpses later, when the bands stopped and the serenities started running,
the wail of bagpipes would ````