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Dalton Trumbo's antiwar novel "Johnny Got His Gun" was first published in 1938, and it followed the experiences of an American soldier who had been grievously injured in a violent shelling during World War I. The soldier, named Joe Bonham, lost his arms and legs in the explosion, as well as his lips, teeth, tongue, ears, and eyes. He breathes through a tracheotomy tube, strapped to a hospital bed. Joe is locked inside his own body, unable to communicate any of his thoughts. In his injured state — he knows what happened to him — Joe wants nothing more than to take his own life, but is unable to. All he can do is hammer out pleas for euthanasia in Morse Code by dropping his head on his pillow. A lot of the story involves flashbacks to Joe's childhood and teen years leading up to the war.