You Better Free Your Mind Instead

In “America the Beautiful,” D’Souza writes, “Americans cannot effectively fight a war without believing that it is just a war. That’s why America has only lost once, in Vietnam, and that was because most Americans did not know what they were fighting for… In order to win, Americans need to believe that they are on the side of the angels. The good news is that they usually are (769).” D’Souza obviously believes that a soldier will willingly fight and die for intangible merits like liberty and loyalty. Furthermore, he quite thinks that liberty and loyalty should be defended. “Johnny Got His Gun,” however, has a wholly opposite view. Nothing, Joe, the main character, exclaims, is worth dying for. “There’s nothing worth dying for I know because I’m dead… I would trade democracy for life. I would trade independence and honor and freedom and decency for life (153-154).” Liberty and loyalty shouldn’t be defended because no one knows quite what they are. “I’m not a fool and when I swap my life for liberty I’ve got to know in advance what liberty is and whose idea of liberty we’re talking about and just how much of that liberty we’re going to have (144).” Interestingly enough, Joe also describes a man who seems like D’Souza. “You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congresses. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor… But what do the dead say (149)?”