The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-05-16

OIit tbot uoh PiCIty lloluC vi Il
hours"
He reminded me of an Irish Tommy
who, so his major told me, woke up
in a hospital in 1916 and, seeing the
nurses in the ward, exclaimed, May
the howly Virgin bless us, but the an
gels have come Gown to the Sonnet"
1t is a fact no observer can deny
the cheer which the presence of a
woman brings into one of these mill.
tary hospitals; she is a tonic to the
spirit and her regarding eyes make
for military neatness more effectually
than any general order. Sometimes,
too, they make for
Don't, however, get it into your head
that the nurses lot is easy. The WON
en- at Base Hospital No. Is are all
graduate professional nurses-and the
qualifications for nursing at this insti-
tuition obtain throughout the Ameri-
can zone. The Lucille" ideal of 1870
is, luckily, dead and buried; the only
nurses that the army will admit are
trained nurses, and they have a life
about as hard as the Teddies.
1t would be impossible for a physi-
cal weakling to get a job here, and no
coward and no gutter could stand the
strain. In the matter of physical
strength and moral endurance, the
work would tax most men. 1t is all
called for the sacrifice of more than
one nurses life.
MY girls" the head nurse told me-,
"sleep with their gas masks beside
their beds-when they get time to
sleep at all; they are on duty for just
as long as efficiency will permit.
They're often in the wet, they're gen
orally in the cold, and they're always
cheerful. | haven't heard a syllable
of complaint since | came here"
There was a time when military men
didn't approve of women in the battle
al cd, tNth DO hul uANA -
But if Kitchener were alive today, he
would either be converted or "unus
contra mundum." We are daily dis
covering that, with all his abilities for
organization, Lord Kitchener had a
great deal to learn about modern war.
This is the hospital to which were
brought the American soldiers wound
ed in the first trench raid. / talked
to some of them as they lay in their
beds in the surgical ward, n got
from them many stories, the better
half of which may not here be told.
1T was pitch-black night when the
boches came over" one soldier told
me. He was lying fiat on his back
with his left leg elevated by a compli-
Gated apparatus at right angles to his
body. "Of course, We were new to the
job and didn't know just what to ex-
pect. At first, because the shells fell
all around us, and not On us, we felt
rather safe. Then, all of a sudden, We
realized what that meant-that it
meant the Dutchmen were cutting us
off from any chance of relief.
"The raiding party came on at that
minute. They were heaving hand
grenades down into our trenches be-
fore we knew what they were about.
One exploded neal me. | didn't think
was hurt, so l grabbed my gun.
started to get up and Their found my
leg was busted. l saw it wasn't any
use to try to fight just played dead
and | guess | must have got away with
it, for about a dozen Germans tramped
| on me, but not one stuck a bayonet
IN me-"
His neighbor had a broken wrist.
81 got it," he explained, from a
splinter that flew my way out Of the
I barrage. The first shells weren't just
the range the boches were after. One
fell, by mistake, in u trench. 1t
buried my chum. l hadn't any tools
to dig him out with, so | tried to dig
him out with my hands. Then that
splinter put me to the bad. When ]
came to, it was morning. First thing,
told the relief Tom was somewhere
under that dirt pile, and they dug and
found him-he wasn't ever scratched"
You would expect to find these men
and any men, after months of camp
t life, with an ocean between them and
their homes-a rather callous lot. In
f, hospital they are nothing of the sort:
r they retain, in fact, the simplicity OF
children, and they are one and all sen
, timentalists.
, Mostly" a pretty nurse told me
"they need hot soup and coffee wher
they get here-I mean the average man
: from the camp. They're nearly always
I chilled to the bone. Last night a pneu
monia case came in. l was on duty
So