8217;s regained some sort of connection with the rest of the world.After five years, Joe is given a medal of honor for his efforts and losses in the war. Joe is quite incensed at the man who gives him the medal, and tries to show it. However, the man leaves without understanding Joe’s anger. One good thing comes out of this though. Joes realizes he can communicate through vibrations and signals. He begins tapping his head in Morse Code signals, but the nurse who attends him does not understand. She instead takes his tapping for discomfort, and injects him with drugs.Joe continues the try to communicate. The attempts all end with drugs until one day, a new nurse comes. She traces ‘Merry Christmas’ on his chest. He understands that this new nurse is tending him for a limited amount of time, and it may be his only chance to get his message through. After a series of trial and error, the nurse comprehends what he is doing, and gets a doctor. The doctor, using Morse Code, taps ‘What do you want?’ on Joe’s forehead. Joe doesn’t know what he wants at first, but then he decides. ‘Let me out,’ he says, so all the world can see what war has done to me. The doctor refuses though.Throughout the book, Joe struggles with his loss. He also blames the men who did this to him, the ‘masters of men’. They are the men who plan these wars and then send young soldiers like Joe to fight them and ‘point the gun’. He is justifiably angry at these men who would send such nave boys into war. ‘Fight for freedom’, they say. “Fight for democracy’. Joe does not want to fight for a word. He would rather have his face.Not much of the war is discussed through Joe in the novel. It was almost as if he has blocked out any memories of the war. The novel showed me how easy it is for soldiers to become disillusioned with the idea of war. It’s eas...
