The monotony of the hospital prevailed with its food also. Even after ten years I am unable to look a jelly-roll in the eye. They were the diurnal diet in the officers’ mess, just as rice puddings prevailed in the wards. I have a depressing memory of passing out little rice puddings in endless procession from the diet kitchen to the patients. Sometimes they came back untouched but bearing crosses and the inscription R.I.P. However, those who rated rice pudding were entitled to ice cream—if they could get it. We K.P.’s often did the getting for the patients most in need of cheer. Our funds were immorally collected, the winnings of matching pennies in the kitchen.
The war was the greatest shock that some lives have had to survive. It so completely changed the direction of my own footsteps that the details of those days remain indelible in my memory, trivial as they appear when recorded.
Days of routine slipped by quickly enough into months of nursing. I hope what we did was helpful. Somebody had to do it. There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.
‡[Amelia M. Earhart]
‡[UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD STUDIOS N.Y.]
© International Newsreel
WILMER STULTZ
War followed one everywhere. Even entertainments weren’t always merely fun. Often they meant having tea with a group of women who were carrying their war work into their homes. I remember, for instance, hours spent with a power sewing machine making pajamas.
The aviation I touched, too, while approached as an entertainment was of course steeped with war. Sometimes I was invited to a flying field, Armour Heights, on the edge of the city. I think there were many planes there; I know there were many young pilots being trained—some very young. (As a matter of fact I wasn’t exactly grey with age—twenty, then.)