White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1919-06-29
PAYS TRIBUTE TO
SPIRIT OF YANKS
Wounded Men Smile, Though Sui.
fering Tortures.
RED CROSS NURSE IMPRESSED

Returns After Ten Months Service
Overseas With an Abiding Enthusl-
asm for the Heroism o. the Amerl.
an soIdIsr-chivaIry 10 ~ Great 40
His valor-Wat Patiently for Heurs
and Smile Through II All.
Miss Sara Cunningham, daughter Of
Mrs. James c. Cunningham, I24 East
Fifty-dfth street. New York. has come
back from France after ten months ex-
traordinary overseas experience with
the Red Cross and an abiding enthust-
asm for the American soldier.
II you've once seen wounded men
sometimes horribly wounded-come
into an evacuation hospital. almost
straight from the trenches, and
watched them smile and heard them
tell you IT doesn't hurt much when
their faces were gray and their mus
Giles drawn with pain-if you've seen
things like that, through one big drive
after another. you'd never quite get
your old pre-war attitude toward hu-
mainly again" Miss Cunningham said.
you find M that human beings
aren't just flesh and blood and mind
you find out how much of the mystic
and the divine there are in even a COM
monplace manor a mar who. before
the war. you would have mistakenly
called commonplace. Nobody. / think.
who has been even remotely touched
BY the last four years can vel be
quite as he was before.
$50 many silly. useless conventions,
70 much ~insincere pose slipped away
from men and near the front
that / don't think any OF us, now that
we're rid of those Silly ultra-civilized
notions. will ever go back to them
again. You get to know people for
what they were over there-and saw
under their skins and you found out
the real qualities That make manhood
Waited Patiently for Hours.
Miss Cunningham leaned forward
eagerly. with flushed. animated face.
"If l could only make you see those
boys" she said. "as they were brought
In on stretchers during the fury Of a
big drivel Often they had long hours
to walt for attention because the
nurses and doctors were so few and
the wounded so many. Sometimes there
would be piles, tier on tier. of stretch
ers, aud the wounded would lie for
hours waiting their turn. Do you think
they complained or whlmpered7 Not
theyl In all the heat and confusion
of the worst rush | never once passed
a wounded mar who didn't look up
and smile. Sometimes when a mans
turn for attention would come he'd
say, You better go to my buddy first.
nurse. He's worse hit than | ami
And when you'd give them a drink Of
water they'd often as not tell you to
pass 1t on to another chap who'd been
asking for II.
"Now. these things weren't Isolated
instances. They are the things that
happened day after day all the time l
was In France. I saw nothing else. l
was at C%ompiegne during the bad fight
ing around there at the hastily con-
structed Red Cross evacuation hospital.
and we had a constant stream Of men
from Montdidier. from Scissors and
from Chateau Thierry. l tell you quite
honestly during all that awful period
! did not hear a single man complain.
They all smiled-can you picture itf
There were those bleeding. tortured
fellows. smillng-smlllng. Occasion
ally they even told a joke. II was
heart-breaking, you know-you felt
that you could almost go down on your
knees In acknowledgment OF such man.
hood"
Tells Of Their chivairy.
This New York girl who has been all
over the fighting front. who has nursed
In every big drive from the time she
went to France until the signing Of the
armistice. who has acted as nurse.
dietitian. interpreter and entertainer,
and who has rome alone to army posts
when she was the only m for
miles around. has as much to say for
the ~chivalry Of the American fighting
mau as for his valor.
Sometimes" she said. people viii
tell you about the ~fooliardiness Of q
girl going to France among soldiers
about the dangers and insults to which
she is being exposed. II there were
girls treated with disrespect by any
man Of any rank In our army I think
those girls must have been In some
way responsible-perhaps they didn't
realize II themselves, but they must
have invited that sort Of thing. even
though they did so unconsciously. ]
am convinced OF this, because I'm sure
that nobody could have been more 'ex-
posed than | was-I me all sorts and
conditions of men alone. unSM all
circumstances, at every heur OF the day
and night, and they we're oh. simply
wonderful
~ can't tell you how fine they were.
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