Joe Bonham comes to. Slowly, the thoughts of the 20-year-old begin to clear, and he realizes that he is lying in a hospital. His memories return. Memories of the battlefields of World War I, a shell explosion, family, love, the time before the war. And now he lies in this hospital. Where? He does not know. But he will find out. He will learn what the war has made of him. He will rise up, fight back, struggle. His mind is alive and angry, but his body is dead. No one can recognize the awake mind in this body, only he can. And Johnny screams. Trumbo paints the picture of a young soldier who went to a foreign land for the promises of homeland, freedom, democracy, and honor, where he lost his future and had to realize that there are worse things than death. Dalton Trumbo's pacifist work.