everyone the horrors of war. Joe imagines himself in a schoolhouse recitng this nursery rhyme: "Hickory *censored*ory dock my daddy' nuts from shell shock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and burned out his eyes. A dillar a dollar a ten o'clock scholar blow of his legs and then watch him holler. Rocka-bye baby on the tree top don't stop a bomb or you'll probably flop. Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellars good and deep but if I die before I wake remember God it's for your sake."(Trumbo 19.228-229) The final chapter is full of sarcastic passages such as this which clearly indicates the deterioration of Joe's mind which leads to his dementia. Joe has nothing left to look forward to and as most people do when they are hopless, he turns to God.Before that fate full day, when a German shell fell from the heavens and landed in close proximity to Joe causing his partial destruction, Joe was not a religous man. Like any other human being Joe needed something to hold on to. At first he used his memories but in time he ran out of them for you see Joe is just a young a man with little wordly experience. With his happy memories depleted Joe is left with no choice but to communicate with the spiritual world- the world in his head- The only place where he can talk to anyone. He saw himself playing cards with dead soldiers whom he did not know and Christ was playing with them"Christ came right into the railway station and sat down with them." This is a sign of Joe's spirituality and his new found belief in Christianity.War is not a game to be played by childre. It is not a gimmick to be used by a news station to gain higher ratings or sell more papers. It is a tragedy. What is it that causes people to want to kill one and other? Perhaps there is no anwser. Perhaps we will never know, but we will know the saddness that acompanies it. ...
