Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Now that nations have seen the light and are making effort to repair the injuries done their disabled soldiers in the past, the men themselves must play their part and help in every way possible to further the program.

One of the greatest aids in putting the disabled soldier back on his feet is drawn from the example of men who have successfully taken advantage of the training opportunities. In Great Britain the Minister of Pensions has issued a booklet entitled, "What Every Disabled Soldier Ought to Know" and which contains letters from men who have graduated through training to success in civilian employment.

In schools for blind soldiers one of the principal functions is performed by blind men themselves who receive the newcomers and encourage them to start off with ambition to make their way under their new handicap.

Most lasting help is derived from the example of civilian cripples who under the great handicap of public opinion in the past and with every disadvantage against them have made good. By force of superior character and initiative these men have overcome the same physical handicaps under which their less forceful fellows have gone down to economic defeat. At one school for disabled men, one of the most helpful features has been a series of meetings for an audience of cripples, addressed by crippled speakers. One of these speakers was a man whose extremities had been frozen by exposure in a blizzard, with consequent amputation of two legs, one arm, and four fingers of the remaining hand. He had then become for two years an inmate of the poor-house. He told the county authorities that if they would give him just one year in college, he would never again cost them a cent, persuaded them to do so, and made good his prediction. He later rose to be speaker of the House of Representatives in his home state, and is now president of a flourishing bank in the middle west. "If your mind and spirit are straight," he says, "no other handicap can keep you down."

Another speaker had one leg amputated and started under this handicap with no educational or financial advantages whatever. The best job he could get was as a shipping clerk, but he soon found there was no future for a disabled man in a manual and unskilled job. Under great difficulty, he attended night school, and finally obtained modest employment under civil service auspices. He now occupies a position requiring a high degree of expertness and experience.

A third successful cripple who spoke at one of these meetings was a man who had lost both arms in an accident; one is amputated at the shoulder, the other just below the elbow. He found almost hopeless difficulty in getting the first job, becoming meanwhile almost a vagrant. At last he obtained employment supervising a gang of unskilled laborers. From that point he has risen steadily. He has invented and manufactured his own appliances, with the aid of which he does practically every duty of daily routine -- including putting on his collar and tie, engaging in a game of bowling, or pruning his own peach trees. He was elected by his county to be justice of the peace and later was thrice chosen for the responsible task of county judge.

Such indomitable courage in the face of adverse circumstances cannot fail of inspiration to other men handicapped in the same ways. The disabled men themselves urge their fellows to obey the new order to advance.

CHAPTER IV
FIRST STEPS TO SELF-SUPPORT

With the medical department of the military organization lies the first responsibility and by all odds the greatest task in dealing with the disabled soldiers. A very large proportion -- about eighty per cent. -- of the men handled through the hospitals overseas successfully recover and return to the front for further service.

Of those returned from overseas almost ninety per cent, are candidates for physical reconstruction only. About twenty per cent, are permanently disabled, partially or totally. Half of this number, however, are able to go back to their former occupation, without the need of re-education. The other half, or ten per cent, of those dealt with by the reconstruction hospital, require special training.

It will be evident, therefore, that the task of caring medically and surgically for the injured soldier, is one of immense magnitude. It has taxed to the limit the facilities of the medical corps of our allies, and in providing for similar work in this country, the Surgeon General of the Army will need and deserve the unstinted financial support of the legislative authorities and moral support of the people as a whole.

The reason why this job of physical reconstruction of wounded men has not received wider public attention is that the marvels of medicine and surgery are not entirely new to us, while the economic reconstruction of the tithe of the total who would otherwise be destined 38 T H p: disabled soldier for the social scrap heap is of very recent development, and has seized upon the public imagination. Yet without the work of the medical corps, re-education would lack a sound foundation on which to build.