Caring for Wounds
The brave soldiers that fight our wars not only engage in a battle that can impact their lives, but the lives of others, especially their family members. After reading sections from Testament of Youth it is clear that there are many wounds in war. Wounds may be physical and emotional. Wounds will impact others, especially those that are close. Wounds affect the nurses who care for the wounded. Wounds affect the children, who can don’t realize why their daddy is plugged in to machines with tubes and big white band aids wrapped around his arms and legs. The care takers of our soldiers see all of this first hand and have an ability like no other to have an impact on the lives of many.
Nurses, whether in the field of battle or in the hospital, are there to treat the wounded first before family members can see the injured. Just like in WWI with nurses such as Vera Brittain, nurses today are healing the wounded soldiers from Iraq. Healing the wounded must be difficult. I can’t imagine seeing some of the stuff that nurses see. The blood, the pain, and the cries are not something that everyday people see in their jobs.
As Britain wrote, “Many of the patients can’t bear to see their own wounds, and I don’t wonder.”
Caring for the wounds must take someone special, someone strong, and someone brave like the soldiers who they care for.
After reading a post from a RN Clara Hart titled The Faces I realized the impact of nurses and how they’re heroes too. Hart describes caring for a wounded soldier in the ICU. She was immediately touched when she was introduced to the children.
She wrote, “As we talked I looked at the children. I could see the fear and uncertainty crowding their small faces. I asked if I could bring in a DVD player so they could watch movies. Eyes filling once again with tears, Sarah (the mother) thanked me, telling me over and over how much she appreciated the help.
Caring for wounds is just a job for some, but for others it’s a passion. Caring for the loved ones closest is just as important. I think nurses are a gift from God called “Angles.”
The Faces by Clara Hart
The Sandbox
1/28/08
February 5th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I can completely agree with what you’re trying to get at here. I don’t know how some people are able to suspend all of the feelings and emotions that they must be feeling during the tragedies that surround a war. It seems like nurses are able to push so much out of their minds while they are trying to work on someone, and it’s almost a miracle that they are able to work so well under that much stress and pressure. I know that I would have a very hard time trying to calm myself down enough to be effective at all with what i was supposed to be doing. It’s almost a superhuman skill to be able to stay as calm as nurses are during the situations that they are put into. The skills in healing alone are invaluable to all those who are involved in a war, but then to ask someone who has almost no experience with combat to be able to do such delicate work as try and heal the wounded seems to be a monumental task. Nurses will always have my total respect, and they will never cease to amaze me with the things they are able to do, and the conditions that they are able to do them in.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
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