David Gomez

Characters  Joe Bonham  Regular Day Nurse  Bill Bonham  Macia Bonham  Diane (Joe's first girlfriend)  Kareen (Joe's second girlfriend)  Bill Harper (Joe's best friend)

Overview  Joe Bonham lies injured in a hospital bed. While conscious, Joe thinks back over scenes from his past: the night of his father's death and the night before he left his girlfriend Kareen to go to World War I. Before his family moved to Los Angeles, Joe grew up in Shale City, a small town in Colorado. He remembers small-town memories and images, such as the food his mother would prepare, the first time an airplane came to Shale City, and the night he lost his girlfriend, Diane, to his best friend, Bill Harper.  The story goes from the past to the present as Joe thinks regretfully about his decision to join a war that was not any of his business. Slowly, Joe begins to realize that he has been severely injured and treated in a hospital, which is where he currently lies. Joe gradually feels that his arms and legs have been amputated. Furthermore, he realizes that he cannot speak, see, hear, or smell because he no longer has a face—only a mask covering where his face used to be. Joe wonders bitterly abut the doctors' motivation for saving him at all.  The rest of the novel talks about him communicating with his doctors by banging his head on his pillow in Morse code, however, he realizes that neither desire will be granted; it is implied that he will live the rest of his natural life in his condition.  As Joe drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and girlfriend, and reflects upon the myths and realities of war.

Symbols & pictures

Quotes  “What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's just a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it?”- Joe  “He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it.”- Joe

One more fact  In 1988, the heavy metal band Metallica wrote the song "One" based on the book and used clips from the film in the video.  This song is in the ….And Justice for all Album.