Civilians in a World at War, 1914-1918

5. Caring for the Wounded

[ 153 ] [ 5 ] Caring for the Wounded Mourning brides besiege the hospitals for nurses’ wear [while] healthy men dressed for battle . . . with a red cross on their jacket sleeves, rattle their swords in the cafeterias. —Gyula Krúdy1 When the United States army sent out a call for a new group of civilian employees called “Reconstruction Aides” in January 1918, both Katrine Fairclough and Lena Hitchcock volunteered. These new “RAs” provided specialized care for recuperating soldiers in the areas of massage therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. While Katrine Fairclough worked full-time at a hospital in Liverpool (U.K.) as a medical masseuse, Lena Hitchcock was sent to France in 1918, where she worked as a nurse’s aide in the wards. As Hitchcock described it, I make beds, first sweeping them out with a whisk broom, twice daily; rub backs (black and white), sterilize the instruments, wash the rubber gloves, keep the dressing cart in order, hand Miss Knight and the surgeon what they need, take temperatures and fill out the charts. This is what we all do, and I love it. The boys are marvelous—when the horrible, gaping wounds are being dressed, there is never a word out of them.2 With all this other activity, she only managed to fit in her occupational therapy when there was extra time. The woodworking, weaving, and sewing the men performed improved their dexterity, while exercises, stretching, and massage helped rejuvenate muscles. Hitchcock and Fair- Caring for the Wounded [ 154 ] clough, despite working with soldiers in militarized, uniformed settings, were civilian employees, trained specifically to retrain the bodies that war had broken. Applicants for the RA positions had to be twenty-five to forty years old, between one hundred and 195 pounds, with a high school diploma and training in physical massage. Although it consisted of civilian employees, this corps functioned under the auspices of the army, with living quarters, uniforms, and additional training provided as well as salaries of fifty to sixty dollars per month. Like tens of thousands of other civilians, these RAs spent their war trying to mend the broken bodies and souls that war created, rehabilitating them for further service in the war, or for return to civilian life. Medical personnel, in all their variety, were among the most celebrated of all workers during the war. Medical services in World War I encompassed a broad range of functions and personnel, with military mediA Reconstruction Aide helps wounded soldiers make wooden dolls as part of their rehabilitation. U.S. Signal Corps, National Archives and Records Administration. Caring for the Wounded [ 155 ] cal establishments, private charitable hospitals, ambulance corps run by private and public entities, and neutral medical services staffed and organized by international organizations such as the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Red Crescent, and the Red Cross. Many times during the war these various organizations clashed over ideology and over territory —caring for the wounded became a massive endeavor that strained resources and beliefs before the conflict came to a close. Most medical personnel, whether they held military commissions or civilian posts, recognized that their role in the war was different from that of soldiers. Rather than taking lives, they were saving them. Yet many medical personnel were uniformed, protected, and often even housed and fed by armies, which were organized along national lines. Sometimes this led to conflict, as the needs of the wounded demanded a certain neutrality of perspective, but the demands of national Red Crosses or armies often called for partisan views. It was frequently hard for those working in hospitals to separate themselves from their national loyalties, and even neutrals sometimes got caught up in the nationalist fervor of those with whom they associated. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, and ambulance drivers lived and interacted with soldiers on a daily basis, serving as a conduit between the worlds of the front and of the home. The gap between soldiers and those caring for them was certainly one of experience of killing, but in terms of exposure to danger and psychological trauma, they were closer together than either probably realized. Although deeply embedded in military life and culture and enmeshed in the war itself, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and orderlies were often perceived as being separate from war, neutral, objective , somehow above the fray. This chapter examines the ambiguous role of medical services as accessories to war and as saviors of soldiers, an...