exhaling smoke is like punctuation in his conversation. Other distractions such as the jangle of the telephone, and the barking of a small, shaggy dog named ’Pumpkin,’ do not detract from Vonnegut’s good-natured disposition. Indeed, as Dan Wakefield once said of his fellow Shortridge High School alumnus: ’He laughed a lot and was kind to everyone.’”
• • •
INTERVIEWER: You are a veteran of the Second World War?
VONNEGUT: Yes. I want a military funeral when I die—the bugler, the flag on the casket, the ceremonial firing squad, the hallowed ground.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
VONNEGUT: It will be a way of achieving what I’ve always wanted more than anything—something I could have had, if only I’d managed to get myself killed in the war.
INTERVIEWER: Which is—?
VONNEGUT: The unqualified approval of my community.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t feel that you have that now?
VONNEGUT: My relatives say that they are glad I’m rich, but that they simply cannot read me.
INTERVIEWER: You were an infantry battalion scout in the war?
VONNEGUT: Yes, but I took my basic training on the 240-millimeter howitzer.
INTERVIEWER: A rather large weapon.
VONNEGUT: The largest mobile field piece in the Army at that time. This weapon came in six pieces, each piece dragged wallowingly by a Caterpillar tractor. Whenever we were told to fire it, we had to build it first. We practically had to invent it. We lowered one piece on top of another, using cranes and jacks. The shell itself was about nine-and-a-half inches in diameter and weighed three hundred pounds. We constructed a miniature railway which would allow us to deliver the shell from the ground to the breech, which was about eight feet above grade. The breech-block was like the door on the vault of a savings and loan association in Peru, Indiana, say.
INTERVIEWER: It must have been a thrill to fire such a weapon.
VONNEGUT: Not really. We would put the shell in there, and then we would throw in bags of very slow and patient explosives. They were damp dog biscuits, I think. We would close the breech, and then trip a hammer which hit a fulminate of mercury percussion cap, which spit fire at the damp dog biscuits. The main idea, I think, was to generate steam. After a while, we could hear these cooking sounds. It was a lot like cooking a turkey. In utter safety, I think, we could have opened the breechblock from time to time, and basted the shell. Eventually, though, the howitzer always got restless. And finally it would heave back on its recoil mechanism, and it would have to expectorate the shell. The shell would come floating out like the Goodyear blimp. If we had had a stepladder, we could have painted “Fuck Hider” on the shell as it left the gun. Helicopters could have taken after it and shot it down.
INTERVIEWER: The ultimate terror weapon.
VONNEGUT: Of the Franco-Prussian War.
INTERVIEWER: But you were ultimately sent overseas not with this instrument but with the 106th Infantry Division?
VONNEGUT: “The Bag Lunch Division.” They used to feed us a lot of bag lunches. Salami sandwiches. An orange.
INTERVIEWER: In combat?
VONNEGUT: When we were still in the States.
INTERVIEWER: While they trained you for the infantry?
VONNEGUT: I was never trained for the infantry. Battalion scouts were elite troops, see. There were only six in each battalion, and nobody was very sure about what they were supposed to do. So we would march over to the rec room every morning, and play Ping-Pong and fill out applications for Officer Candidate School.
INTERVIEWER: During your basic training, though, you musthave been familiarized with weapons other than the howitzer.
VONNEGUT: If you study the 240-millimeter howitzer, you don’t have time for other weapons. You don’t even have time left over for a venereal disease film.
INTERVIEWER: What happened when you reached the front?
VONNEGUT: I imitated various war movies I’d seen.
INTERVIEWER: Did you shoot anybody in the
• • •
INTERVIEWER: You are a veteran of the Second World War?
VONNEGUT: Yes. I want a military funeral when I die—the bugler, the flag on the casket, the ceremonial firing squad, the hallowed ground.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
VONNEGUT: It will be a way of achieving what I’ve always wanted more than anything—something I could have had, if only I’d managed to get myself killed in the war.
INTERVIEWER: Which is—?
VONNEGUT: The unqualified approval of my community.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t feel that you have that now?
VONNEGUT: My relatives say that they are glad I’m rich, but that they simply cannot read me.
INTERVIEWER: You were an infantry battalion scout in the war?
VONNEGUT: Yes, but I took my basic training on the 240-millimeter howitzer.
INTERVIEWER: A rather large weapon.
VONNEGUT: The largest mobile field piece in the Army at that time. This weapon came in six pieces, each piece dragged wallowingly by a Caterpillar tractor. Whenever we were told to fire it, we had to build it first. We practically had to invent it. We lowered one piece on top of another, using cranes and jacks. The shell itself was about nine-and-a-half inches in diameter and weighed three hundred pounds. We constructed a miniature railway which would allow us to deliver the shell from the ground to the breech, which was about eight feet above grade. The breech-block was like the door on the vault of a savings and loan association in Peru, Indiana, say.
INTERVIEWER: It must have been a thrill to fire such a weapon.
VONNEGUT: Not really. We would put the shell in there, and then we would throw in bags of very slow and patient explosives. They were damp dog biscuits, I think. We would close the breech, and then trip a hammer which hit a fulminate of mercury percussion cap, which spit fire at the damp dog biscuits. The main idea, I think, was to generate steam. After a while, we could hear these cooking sounds. It was a lot like cooking a turkey. In utter safety, I think, we could have opened the breechblock from time to time, and basted the shell. Eventually, though, the howitzer always got restless. And finally it would heave back on its recoil mechanism, and it would have to expectorate the shell. The shell would come floating out like the Goodyear blimp. If we had had a stepladder, we could have painted “Fuck Hider” on the shell as it left the gun. Helicopters could have taken after it and shot it down.
INTERVIEWER: The ultimate terror weapon.
VONNEGUT: Of the Franco-Prussian War.
INTERVIEWER: But you were ultimately sent overseas not with this instrument but with the 106th Infantry Division?
VONNEGUT: “The Bag Lunch Division.” They used to feed us a lot of bag lunches. Salami sandwiches. An orange.
INTERVIEWER: In combat?
VONNEGUT: When we were still in the States.
INTERVIEWER: While they trained you for the infantry?
VONNEGUT: I was never trained for the infantry. Battalion scouts were elite troops, see. There were only six in each battalion, and nobody was very sure about what they were supposed to do. So we would march over to the rec room every morning, and play Ping-Pong and fill out applications for Officer Candidate School.
INTERVIEWER: During your basic training, though, you musthave been familiarized with weapons other than the howitzer.
VONNEGUT: If you study the 240-millimeter howitzer, you don’t have time for other weapons. You don’t even have time left over for a venereal disease film.
INTERVIEWER: What happened when you reached the front?
VONNEGUT: I imitated various war movies I’d seen.
INTERVIEWER: Did you shoot anybody in the
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