In Memoriam 2: Basket Case

In wartime, what is the highest price one can pay?

Death?  Nope.

Savage disfigurement, where death would be a mercy, in lieu of continuing to exist as a literal piece of conscious meat??

Ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner!!

Such was the plight of one Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's epic anti-war novel "Johnny Got His Gun."  On the last day of the Great War - aka WW1 - Joe was "volunteered" to be a member of a small "graves detail;" ie, a small unit whose mission is the recovery of bodies from the battlefield to enable proper burial.  As luck would have it, Joe's squad had to deal with heavy rain, as well as a heavy artillery barrage.

They were forced to scatter before the job was done, due to small-arms fire, but were unexpectedly devastated seconds later  by a long-range 155mm artillery shell that killed everybody in Joe's detail, except Joe himself.  The blast turned 75% of Joe's body into bloody pulp - both arms, both legs, and the whole of Joe's  face and ears were shredded instantly.  Yet he remained alive, and - unbeknownst to anyone save himself - regained his ability for conscious thought, once the aftermath of the trauma wore off.

What happened next was literally a permanent visit to Hell-on-Earth: 

Can you imagine what that must have been like to experience first-hand?  Boggles the mind, no?  Yeah, I know you're probably saying "Oh come on, Chris.  It's only a fictional story - nobody actually went through something like that!!"

Au contraire, my good friends.  I did a fair amount of research on Trumbo's epic many moons ago, and learned that there were indeed two soldiers maimed in this exact fashion near the end of the Great War.    Both from Canada, as I recall.  And both were kept alive for several years as research studies.  They were officially listed as K/MIA, then were quietly taken to a brand new hospital in London.  Although it's still not clear whether either or both of them were conscious as Joe was, even the mere notion that they were is horrifying enough for me, thank you very much.

BTW - severe injuries like Joe's coined the phrase "basket case," for what I trust are rather obvious reasons.  And I'm sure there have been many more Joes in the full century of wars that followed his wounding.  Such is the lot of a soldier - gambling your life during a war, and the possibility of life IN death after said war.  Not the most hopeful of dichotomies, true; but in the endgame of Existence I've a sneaking suspicion that such sacrifices like Joes will merit extra-special recompense and reward..........My Lord...........

Hope y'all had a pleasant Holiday - hug a Vet when you can for me, OK?

Stay tuned!