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"This Is How It Was" An American Nurse in France During
World War I |
 primary preface politics plan xvii posters paris homefront perspectivepeople~joffreperserveranceperniciousproblemspointless battleprecious triviapieces cited |
Pour la Patrie [For the fatherland] THIS is how it was. It is pretty much always like this in a field hospital. Just ambulances rolling in, and dirty, dying men, and the guns off there in the distance! Very monotonous, and the same, day after day, till one gets so tired and bored. Big things may be going on over there, on the other side of the captive balloons that we can see from a distance, but we are always here, on this side of them, and here, on this side of them, it is always the same... This is war. But it goes on and on, over and over, day after day, till it seems like life. Life in peace time... Bah! War's humane compared to peace! More spectacular, I grant you, more acute,--that's what interests us,--but for the sheer agony of life--oh, peace is way ahead!
War is so clean. Peace is so dirty. There are so many foul diseases in peace times. They drag on over so many years, too. No, war's clean! I'd rather see a man die in prime of life, in war time, than see him doddering along in peace time, broken hearted, broken spirited, life broken, and very weary, having suffered many things,--to die at last, at a good, ripe age! ...Only war's spectacular, that's all. |
