Johnny Got His Gun

Johnny Got His Gun is a vivid antiwar novel published in 1939 by Dalton Trumbo, and later (1971) a movie of the same title both written and directed by Trumbo.

Johnny Got His Gun tells the story of Joe Bonham, a World War I infantryman horribly maimed in combat. Joe is alive, but is only a faceless torso. In a series of flashbacks, the reader is forced to compare the vibrancy of even an ordinary life with the horrors and living death of war.

The story is retold in song in Metallica's One. The music video contains scenes from the film.