[CrazyIvan]

Manning a ball turret had to be terrifying. Reading the poem “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” at a very young age shocked me and made me suddenly aware that war was the romanticized thing I saw at the movies.
Good by to an incredibly brave man.

[CrazyIvan]

Should read “was NOT”

[choirboy]

THE DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET GUNNER By Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

My first thought upon reading this was how much like an abortion his death was.