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Many soldiers also suffered from what doctors called trench foot. The only way to get rid of the itchy pests was to bathe and change clothes, but often weeks passed before they could do this. One North Carolinian remarked, “At first we had only one kind but now we have the gray-back, the red, the black, and almost every color imaginable.” Lice lived on the soldiers' unclean clothes and bodies.

Unmerciful pests such as lice also lived in the trenches. Doctors and nurses could do little to help soldiers with influenza and intestinal flu, and these diseases killed more men than machine gun bullets. Soldiers lived and fought in trenches that were little more than swamplike holes in the ground-a perfect breeding ground for disease. Sufferers could be hysterical, disoriented, paralyzed, and unable to obey orders. As the war progressed, a mental illness caused by these conditions became known as shell shock. Most soldiers got used to living in muddy areas filled with rats, rotting corpses, and exploding shells, but others could not. The use of these gases was banned after the end of World War I. Many thousands of gas victims suffered the painful effects of damaged lungs throughout their lives. Bathing and changing clothes immediately helped but was not always possible. Even having the fumes in their clothing could cause blisters, sores, and other health problems. As soon as troops learned that gas was in their area, they had to put on masks. It could cause death or paralysis within minutes, killing by asphyxiation.

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Gas burned skin and irritated noses, throats, and lungs. World War I was the first conflict to see the use of deadly gases as a weapon. Generally there were four kinds of cases: gas injuries, shell shock, diseases, and wounds. He recorded that wounded men were brought from the battlefield to a triage area to be sorted out. North Carolinians organized and staffed the 317th Ambulance Company and Base Hospital 65.įelix Brockman of Greensboro volunteered for the 321st Ambulance Company, which was made up of men from the Greensboro and Winston-Salem areas. From there the severely injured were taken to base hospitals far behind the lines. Ambulances rushed them to mobile dressing stations or field hospitals that followed the advancing and retreating troops. Motorized transport proved to be the fastest and most efficient way to move the wounded. We had to step on these dead soldiers to keep from going in the water and mud so deep and throwing the off the stretcher. Moore related that he “was a stretcher bearer in the Hindenburg Line for about half a day. Lieutenant Andrew Green wrote to friends in Raleigh praising the stretcher-bearers who carried him over one mile through enemy shell fire after he was wounded in the leg. The first aid treatment these medics gave often saved lives.

Stretcher-bearers first came into contact with the wounded and moved them from trenches to waiting ambulances. This system arranged military medical staff in a practical manner. During the war, the army medical corps copied parts of the French and English medical system that had been in use for the past three years. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the army did not have an established medical corps. Almost 6,000 of these casualties were North Carolinians. In less than a year the American armed forces suffered more than 318,000 casualties, of which 120,000 were deaths. Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of Historyįrom a medical standpoint, World War I was a miserable and bloody affair. Text reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian, Spring 1993

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