THE. CHICAGOSSUN GSUNDAY;,2APRILD 5;

1942

 

ARMING OUR HOME FRONT

 

Red Cross Nurse's Aide
Job Yours-If You've
Got What it Takes!

Volunteers Can Enter War Service;
Requirements High; Work a Challenge

By Mrs. Gudrun Alcock

Woman’s Editor.

ole

Surrounded by friends, showered with flowers, a group of 10 girls
boarded the train on which I was leaving Washington recently. Through |
the flippancy of gay farewells, there was a certain bravado—you sensed |
that this was to be goodbye for a long time.

Every girl was pretty, extremely so.

It was a prettiness that was

more than surface, it was in the way. their heads were held high, in

the way their eyes seemed to look
readily to far horizons.

That evening
as we were all in
the dressing room

Pawe talked as the
train swayed
along. The light
chatter and femi-
nine details of
putting cream on
kour faces were
sobered by the
identifieation tags
<I saw around each

‘girl’s slim neck.

These young

women were United States Navy
nurses,

Over a year ago they had applied
and -now, after undergoing special-
ized training and passing rigid
tests, they were on their way. They
were proud of their new duties, and
well prepared for their job.

This article has been withheld
until I was free to tell the destina-
tion marked on their luggage—for
it read, dramatic in its simplicity—
“Pearl Harbor.”

Who will replace these girls’
places in our hospitals? They’re
gone, we don’t know for how long.
All the hospitals are now forming
units of.doctors and nurses. who wil!
“be ready to go whenever ordered.
; There are not enough student
nurses to fill the gaps. The answer

MRS, ALCOCK.

 

 

a VERSE

Some soldier or sailor
Should be on his way

To have Easter dinner
At your house today.

 

He will lose almost all fingers on
both hands, but you laugh with him |
when he jokes that he’s glad it
wasn’t his feet.

Numberless Tasks.

You stop to see if the man whose
ear was cut off is comfortable. You
agree with him that he should not
have become interested in another
man’s wife. You check to see if
John, whose girl stabbed him three
times, needs anything. You give
baths and wash faces. You assist
the nurse in dressing a wound. You
are on your feet constantly, alert
to render the many little services
which make the tedious time in bed
pass more quickly and comfortably.

‘ You-do this all day for two days
every week. You apace your own,

d th ‘