Editing Johnny Got His Gun (section)

==Title and context==
The title is a play on the phrase "Johnny get your gun",<ref name="SparkNotes-Themes">
{{cite web|url=http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/johnnygun/themes.html|title=SparkNotes: Johnny Got His Gun: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols|publisher=SparkNotes.com|access-date=August 7, 2009}}</ref>
a rallying call that was commonly used to encourage young American men to enlist in the military in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That phrase was popularized in the [[George M. Cohan]] song "[[Over There]]", which was widely recorded in the first year of American involvement in World War I. ''[[Johnny Get Your Gun]]'' is also the name of a 1919 film directed by [[Donald Crisp]].<ref>
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0010315 IMDb profile of 1919 film ''Johnny Get Your Gun'']</ref>

Many of protagonist Joe Bonham's early memories are based on [[Dalton Trumbo]]'s early life in Colorado and Los Angeles. The novel is inspired by articles about two men with severe injuries that Trumbo read about: the tearful hospital visit of [[Edward VIII|Edward, Prince of Wales]] to [[Curley Christian]], considered to be the first and only Canadian soldier in WWI who was a quadruple amputee, and a British major whose body was damaged so horrifically that he was reported as [[Missing in action|MIA]] to his family. The family discovered the truth years after his death in the hospital.<ref name="TStar">{{cite news|url=https://www.thestar.com/news/world/ww1/2014/08/01/world_war_1_encyclopedia_christian_curley.html| title= World War 1 Encyclopedia: Christian, Curley| work=[[Toronto Star]]| date=August 1, 2014| accessdate=August 11, 2022}}</ref><ref name="Major">{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/28/archives/thirty-years-later-johnny-gets-his-gun-again-johnny-gets-his-gun.html| title=Thirty Years Later, Johnny Gets His Gun Again| work=[[The New York Times]]| last=Flatley| first=Guy| date=June 28, 1970| accessdate=August 11, 2022}}</ref> "Though the novel was a pacifist piece published in wartime, it was well reviewed and won an American Booksellers Award in 1940."<ref name="SparkNotes-Context">
{{cite web|url=http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/johnnygun/context.html|title=SparkNotes: Johnny Got His Gun: Context|publisher=SparkNotes.com|access-date=2009-08-07}}</ref>
(It was published two days after the declaration of war in Europe, more than two years before the United States joined World War II.)