the backwash of war

Fatima SaavedraHIST 347April 30, 2014

Final Memo: The Backwash of War

War takes victims. War takes casualties. War doesn’t care who dies or who lives. It must

have been tough for the nurses and doctors at the front. There are so many possible wounds to

be treated, and there were so many casualties in this war. There wasn’t much medicine to

relieve the pain, and the men were being treated in pretty unsanitary conditions. I find that in

many of the essays that Motte wrote she found the effects of the war to be numbing-not just to

the nurses but to the families as well.

Motte talks about how the hospital seemed to be a factory of sorts-fixing up the men

who could be fixed up only to be sent back to the front. They were like items. If there was a

death, then it was just part of normal hospital work. One had to move on because there were

so many other injured that needed the help of the nurses, doctors, and surgeons. These

“professionals,” in the midst of the war, where the ones that were in charge of so many lives.

The men that could be fixed were taken to be fixed, and then one they recovered they were

sent off to go back to the war. It makes one wonder if there were men that simply went crazy

after so many treatments at the hospitals at the front. Were they of sane mind to continue

going on in the war?

Motte and Borden both have cases of suicide in the hospitals they work in. In Borden’s

case, she builds up a story for the man who wanted to take his own life. She victimizes him, and

says that he wanted to die after having survived his operation. Borden continues to think that

the man wants to die, and she eventually plays a part in his death. One has to wonder if that is

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really what the man wanted. He had been shot in the head, so his brain might have been

impaired. Was he really in his right mind for Borden to assume that he still wanted to die? In

Motte’s case she doesn’t really delve into the life of the man that she is treating. She just states

simple facts. There really isn’t much emotion in her essays. She seems to be far away from her

writing. She is more of an isolated woman. There is more of a detachment in Motte’s essays

than there was in Borden’s essays. However, both women question the fact that these men,

who committed suicide, are going to die anyway, so what is the purpose of saving them?

Motte wrote an essay about a young Belgian boy that was caught by shrapnel in the

stomach. She mentions how he was about ten years old. I find that this essay helps illuminate

the world of war. There weren’t just soldiers constantly dying. There were also civilians that

were caught in the midst of the war. It’s quite terrifying to imagine a life of war. One can hide

and take shelter, but there is really no guarantee of survival. There isn’t a complete guarantee

that one will survive the war, and that makes things a lot scarier. This young boy that Motte

mentions in her essay was visited by his mother. His mother seems to be very emotionally

detached from the boy. It’s not what the way that one would expect a mother to react. Instead

of crying or demanding to stay by the boy’s bedside, the mother wants to return to her home.

She says that her other children still need taking care of, and that her husband needs her at

home. The doctor in charge is disturbed by her actions and thoughts. She mentions that she left

two boys in England and that if one of them were in danger of dying that she wouldn’t hesitate

to head back. I think this story helps emphasize that war causes emotional turmoil. Instead of

having the time to grieve properly, one starts to become numb to the atrocities of war.

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Motte and Borden also talk about how some men took priority over others. Men that

could survive took priority over those who were not intended to live. They tried to make the

dying as comfortable as possible. Motte talks about a man who couldn’t be relieved from pain.

He had been given morphine, yet he was still in immense pain. As a nurse or doctor it must

have been a really hard thing to have to witness so much pain. A pain of a patient so immense,

yet there is nothing one can do to alleviate it. The hospitals of the war were crowded. Some

days were peaceful, and some days were chaotic. It must have been extremely hard to maintain

a semblance of a regular schedule. I can’t imagine that a hospital was ever completely barren of

an injured man.

I find that Motte was more of a gentle writer. Borden seemed to be a much more vivid

writer. Borden described injuries, conditions, and happenings quite descriptively. I find that

Motte was much more interested in people that happened to come by the hospital. Borden had

a way of dehumanizing the patients of the hospitals. She would often say that the men in the

hospital had inhumane howls of pain. She would compare them to animals. Borden also

referred and identified the men by the injuries they sustained. She rarely talked about the

men’s faces. Borden was a much more detached character. Motte talked about the patients

more freely. She described their personalities more. She individualized them. Many of her

essays talk about the patients in the hospital. Motte was also not as descriptive about the

injuries the men sustained. She was more eloquent. She wasn’t as gory in her descriptions as

Borden was.

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Motte included a range of characters in her essays. She talked about the doctors in

charge, the Generals who came to visit, other hospital nurses and surgeons, and the people

that the soldiers deaths affected-like wives and family. She had a couple essays that were also

seen to be of an outside character. Instead of being told from her point of view, she tried to

include the patient’s point of view. Sometimes she was the outsider looking in. She described

more emotions in her essays. She wasn’t a gory person. She looked more towards a person. She

was detached, but she wasn’t insensitive to the humanity that still thrived in the soldiers.

In her essays, Motte had a more humane point of view. She analyzed situations, and she

tried her best to establish a story and a connection. However, Motte seemed to be more bland

in her essays. She was descriptive, but there seemed to be a lack of emotion behind her words.

It’s as if she was just recounting a normal story. Many nurses and doctors had to become

emotionally detached in the war. They couldn’t afford to let their sentimentality conquer them

when there were constant lives to be saved. There wasn’t enough time to grieve for those

soldiers that weren’t going to make it. There wasn’t enough time to get to know the patients-

not when there so many that were constantly injured.

As a nurse, doctor, or surgeon in a war I’d say that becoming a robot is part of what they

had to go through. There wasn’t time for emotions or feelings during the war. There wasn’t

time to feel sorry for oneself. They had to continue to work because without them constantly

fighting to keep death at bay there would have been so many more deaths. One had to grow

accustomed to misfortunes of the war. One had to grow used to seeing grievous wounds and

bodies.

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the backwash of war

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