Here\u2019s the first of the many stories I wrote during the earlier years of keeping this web site. The source for this one is from Citizen Soldiers by the late Stephen Ambrose, and I put it up on the 6 Oct 2000.<\/p>\n
![\"blog-the_english_patient.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/blog-the_english_patient.jpg\")
Conditions were very tough for the medical personnel during World War 2; the hospitals and medical tents couldn\u2019t be too far from the frontline in order to effectively treated the wounded soldiers. This was to say nothing of that often, these positions were often shelled by enemy artillery as well.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t just that the wounded soldiers often felt great affection for the nurses and doctors who nursed them back to health during the war, like what one saw in The English Patient. Many nurses in the war also found themselves weak with admiration for the wounded men. One American nurse, Lt. Frances Slanger of the 45th Field Hospital, once expressed the feeling in an October letter addressed to Stars and Stripes, a war-time magazine, but written to the troops. She mailed this one morning to the armed forces magazine. Her letter perhaps best surmised how many of the nurses felt about the wounded soldiers they healed:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou G.I.\u2019s say we nurses rough it. We wade ankle deep in mud. You have to lie in it. We have a stove and coal\u2026 In comparison to the way you men are taking it, we can\u2019t complain, nor do we feel that bouquets are due us\u2026 It is to you we doff our helmets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave learned about our American soldier and the stuff he is made of. The wounded don\u2019t cry. Their buddies come first. The patience and determination they show, the courage and fortitude they have is sometimes awesome to behold. It is a privilege to receive you and a great distinction to see you open your eyes and with that swell American grin, say, \u2018Hi-ya, babe.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Frances Slanger was killed that evening by an artillery shell. She was one of the seventeen Army nurses killed in combat.<\/p>\n