The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-10-18
DESCRIBES HOW IT
FEELS TO Be SHOT
Bullets in Battle Do Not
Stop a Man in Fighting, So
T. r. Wasn't Stopped.

This week everybody was asking
one or more of these questions:
But didn't Colonel Roosevelt know
at once he was wounded?
Didn't it take unusual nerve and
strength to stand up and speak with a
bullet in his side?
Didn't the colonel suffer acutely?
How does it feel to be shot, anyway?
Kipling says-and he got his infor-
nation at first hand from men who
had been wounded:
1.-The first pain of bullet wound
is no more than that of brisk pinch.
1t takes seconds or even minutes for
the shattered nerve centers to re-es-
tablish sensibility"
Why He Staggered Back.
And it is probable that there is no
more mistaken idea prevalent than the
general understanding of the first eff
fects of bullet wound. Novelists u.s.
ually describe it as "a hot, burning
stab" "a piercing agony" 1.-The burst
of red-hot dagger" That sort of stuff
is rhetorical But it is not PATHOLOGY
cal
The first stories of the shooting of
Colonel Roosevelt said he staggered
back into the car" That statement I'M
doubtedly is correct. But it's interpre-
tation-that the surprise or nervous
shock of the wound caused him to
stagger-is wrong He staggered back
from the blow. The physical impact
of revolver bullet is equal to hard
shoulder punch of the fist. 1t is a
sharp, hammer blow, particularly ii
the bullet does not go clear through
the body, but delivers all it's kick"
against the tissues.
After the battles of fifty years ago
the dead on the battle field lay with
their faces upturned, and much was
made of it by the "sob-writers' of
that period without knowing the rea-
son for that pathetic circumstance.
The reason was that heavy lead bull
lets of that era, travelling at a COM
paratively low velocity, simply and
plainly knocked over like tenpins the
men they slew-hammered them brut-
ally backward. In the last big war
stricken soldiers fell forward, their
animation cut off by streaking wisp
of metal that cut through their bodies
almost without resistance. When they
were not fatally wounded-and some
times when they were-they often
kept their feet in the charge and
fought on, unconscious of their hurt,
until the flow of blood brought weak
ness to give them pause.
Many Curl Up and Quit.
For the endurance Of the human
frame, when the "blood is up" is al
most passing belief That partly was
what held Colonel Roosevelt to his
feet while he delivered his speech aft
er he had been wounded. His blood
1t is quite probable that he was not
suffering acutely while he spoke. That
does not detract from his unquestioned
nerve. Rather, it is a proof of 1t. Many
a man of less rugged temper curls up
and quits, under the touch of bullet,
however slight-cries and whimpers
and begs to be saved. His fighting
blood does not rise.
But on Roosevelt such a wound acts
only dS u spur. IL " Tic sur
face the raw courage that Is the bas-
is of his physical makeup That sort
of man is prodigiously incapable of I'M
derstanding what the word quit"
means.
It's Physical Grit, Too.
Aside from moral courage, Roose-
welt has all the physical grit of a
born fighter, that will on occasion
drive the beaten and shattered body
again and again into the fray"