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Barss was learning something they didn’t teach in boot camp: modern warfare, efficient as it was, killed without warning and often without logic. Being brave, smart, or devoted didn’t seem to matter much.
every day the people in charge put the war effort overseas ahead of safe practices at home.
For those of us who are certain we would perform the noble, selfless, and heroic act, perhaps we would—but our answers today don’t count for much until we’re standing where Mackey was standing, with a few seconds to make such a monumental decision.
Aggie March and her baby would be the only people the Mont-Blanc’s captain, crew, or harbor pilot would save that day.
and humans,
When the black cloud cleared, the survivors could not find Mont-Blanc. The ship, all 320 feet of it, had vanished, reduced in a flash to atoms.
(Protecting the environment was not a priority in 1917.)
In a town suddenly facing severely limited resources, including doctors, nurses, hospital beds, and drugs like anesthesia, the entire city, from the soldiers to the surgeons, was now practicing triage. They had to make thousands of snap decisions about who needed help the most, who could wait, and who was in such bad shape that saving them would cost the lives of five others who required less extraordinary measures.
comfort for the helpless, care for those who might pull through.
The reporters were usually the least-noted members of the contingent, but in some ways they were the most important.
On December 6, hundreds of emergency surgeries were performed on store counters, front porches, and dining room tables, often without anesthesia.
“faces torn to tatters, as if clawed by a tiger. The wounds were stuffed with plaster and dirt. Some eyes were literally bags of glass.”
People felt unanchored, and hallucinations were common.
Tragedy comes quick and loud, while the small acts of decency that follow come slowly and quietly.
The gift of hope was eventually eclipsed by the pain of not knowing.
treated an estimated 90 percent of the wounded within twenty-four hours,
It was better to give a new coat to someone who didn’t need one than to make someone who’d lost everything wait two days for their request to be processed.
they seemed to remember those tender mercies as clearly as the horrific scenes they had survived, as if they were somehow imbued with equal power.
a complete warehouse of household goods—everything from new stoves, bathtubs, and beds—so hundreds could replace what they’d lost and feel like they were shopping while doing it. The help received felt less like a national handout than a gift from a neighbor. This respect for the victims’ dignity was not lost on the locals.
owner
Another concept that World War II would popularize: attacking civilian populations to demoralize them sufficiently to end a war. This was the idea behind carpet-bombing Dresden and dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The irony is this: the first city wracked by the collateral damage of war—Halifax—did not bend but came back stronger and more fiercely patriotic.
When the laws no longer applied, basic human decency proved even stronger.
keep going anyway.
