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Billy's Birth
Born in Ilium, New York -
Period: to
Slaughterhouse 5 Timeline
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The Draft
After graduating from Ilium High School in the upper third of his class, Billy had attended night sessions at the Ilium School of Optometry for one semester before being drafted for military service in the Second World War. This would turn out to be an unfortunate event. -
Capture
After saving Billy from enemy fire and trudging through the forest together, Roland Weary beats him up severely, blaming him for the 2 others that had been with them abandoning them. During this famous Battle of the Bulge, they are discovered by 5 German soldiers and their police dog just as Weary almost beats Billy to death. Billy gets blamed for this capture, which made them prisoners of war. -
Prison Hospital
While in the prison camp, Billy had gone delirious and was put in the hospital. Here his new associate Edgar Derby, watched over him. -
Billy gets sent to Dresden
The American Prisoners of War, including Weary, Derby, and Lazzaro, were sent to Dresden as contract labor. Dresden, along with the trip there, is where Billy gains most of the traumatic experiences that give him PTSD. -
Dresden is Destroyed
Dresden, a place previously home to beautiful architecture and considered an "open city" where there was no fear of bombs, was struck in war. This, Billy claimed, killed about one hundred and thirty thousand people. Billy and the other Americans, along with their guards, survived by taking shelter in a meat locker hollowed in the rock under the slaughterhouse 24 hours before the bombing occurred after hearing an air raid siren, which were common in Dresden. -
Institutionalized
Billy put himself in a nonviolent mental institution in the middle of his final year of school for optometry 3 years after the war. Billy really suffers with PTSD after everything he experienced but this is the first time he showed it. In this institution, Billy met Eliot Rosewater, a former infantry captain who introduced Billy to Kilgore Trout. -
Billy gets Kidnapped
After a war movie triggers Billy's PTSD on the night of his daughter's wedding, he believes he is kidnapped by a flying saucer to a planet called Tralfamadore where he is displayed naked in a zoo. The Tralfamadorians mate Billy with the earthling actress Montana Wildhack, who Billy frequently saw on magazines. These creatures gave a voice to opposing thoughts humans didn't understand to Billy, like that war is stupid and that time isn't linear. -
Plane Crash
A chartered plane carrying a group of optometrists to a convention crashed on top of Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont. Billy was the only one to survive the crash, though it left a scar across the top of his skull. Afterwords, Billy never resumed practice, and relied on the assistance of his daughter and housekeeper. -
Billy's Death
On the 31st anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim is killed by Lazzaro while giving a speech about his experiences on Tralfamadore. Lazzaro had sworn in the war that he would have Billy killed for being responsible for Weary's death. His method was hiring a hitman.
