1944, the Battle of the Bulge, later to be known as one of the largest and bloodiest battles of World War II. The hospitals in Belgium and France were dealing with a constant flow of wounded men. One of these men, Ben, was admitted to a hospital for a minor wound that he got on the front lines. The nurses cleaned and bandaged his wound, gave him a cot to sleep on, then left him to his own thoughts as they tended to others.
Ben felt tiny compared to the battle he had witnessed. The front lines were a gruesome place at that time. During a battle of such magnitude, soldiers marched side by side with him to their doom, although they hadn't know it yet. Ben witnessed men torn apart by bullets while other men, like himself, escaped the carnage unscathed or with only minor injuries. He was left alone with these thoughts, thoughts that he struggled with.
A seemingly endless stream of soldiers filled the hospital, all with varying degrees of injury. Ben felt guilty when he saw some of the less fortunate ones. I don't need this bed, he thought. Someone else could certainly make better use of it than I can. Yet, he didn't move.
When the nurses had evaluated his wound upon entering the hospital, they told him he would need to stay for at least two days. As Ben continued to watch the soldiers enter the hospital, he felt that this was ridiculous. He could see that the hospital clearly didn't have a holding capacity large enough for the number of incoming soldiers.
Ben mentioned this to a nurse, who stated that she agreed, but also that many men were dying of infection. "Wounded soldiers now need to stay at the hospital until they are fully healed in order to avoid getting an injury dirty," she had said.
The sun was setting, so Ben decided to get some sleep. As he closed his eyes, a man was brought in screaming. Before Ben even opened his eyes, he recognized these screams as those of a dying man. He felt the hair on his neck and arms stand up. His senses heightened, and he became aware of other men in the hospital who screamed and wailed in similar fashion.
This place is death, Ben thought. He closed his eyes again, but sleep was no longer an option. Night came and went, but all the while, Ben lied awake on his cot, listening to the endless screams of men who saw death in their future. Over the course of the night, the potent smell of infected flesh permeated the hospital. Ben felt disturbed by what he saw and heard, and disgusted by the smell. The notion that he could do nothing to help these people hung over him, and the thought that the hospital was death returned. He certainly wasn't dying, he knew; his pain was incredibly insignificant compared to the drawn-out screams of other soldiers. He could put on a tough face and mask his pain. The others were either in too much pain to care about how they expressed it or were too deep in shock, horror, or disbelief to notice how they expressed their pain.
Eventually, the morning light shined on Ben's face, so he stood up next to his bed. He stopped a nurse as she walked by.
"Excuse me," he said to get her attention. She stopped and waited for him to continue. "I need to leave this hospital, as soon as possible. Please, I really can't tolerate any more of this pain, the pain that I feel on the inside. It's the other wounded soldiers."
She listened to what he had to say, and Ben waited hopefully for her response. The matter was not one-sided, however. From Ben's point of view, leaving would be an attempt to retain his mental health, his sanity. It would be an act of self-preservation. But from the nurse's point of view, this was a soldier who wanted out, and she didn't know his treatment plan. She had protocol to follow. However, she certainly did understand his motive to leave.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Benjamin Doroff," he replied. He balanced on his toes, nervously awaiting the eventual answer to his request.
The nurse led him to where the hospital kept its check-in logs, then searched for his treatment plan. She read it, and something almost like disappointment or sorrow crept into her eyes, only the emotions were dulled by her own experiences.
On the other hand, Ben already knew his treatment plan. He wished it would change. He wanted this decision, more than anything else, to be in his favor. He never wanted anything so badly and felt like he would never want anything as much as this in the future.
"You know, your plan does say that you are to be kept for two days total," the nurse said.
"I do know," Ben replied, "but I will be in a worse state when I leave than when I came here if I stay."
The nurse sighed, unsure exactly what to do. "I can reexamine your injury," she suggested. "That's about the best I can do." She shrugged her apology.
"If that's what you can do, please go right ahead," said Ben. "Maybe it really will help my case."
The nurse led Ben back to his cot and had him lie down. She removed the bandaging and examined the wound. After a while, almost too long for Ben, she gave her conclusion.
"You do seem to be healing well," she said. What she didn't say was that the hospital could use every bit of space it could get, but Ben already knew that anyway. "The only way that I can allow you to return to your military base," she continued, "is if you are exempt from active duty for a few days. And my feeling is that you wouldn't mind that at all."
Ben showed his relief by smiling. He didn't smile happily as much as hopefully, hopeful that the future holds better times.
Less than five minutes later, an escort arrived for Ben. A soldier picked him up in a military Jeep, and Ben sat in the back seat, left to his own thoughts again. He reflected on his experience in the hospital. Horrifying up to the moment I left, he decided. Except for Marie. Marie, Ben's nurse, made the experience slightly more bearable because of her decision to let him go.
Ben realized that he still didn't know the name of the hospital, so he asked the man driving the Jeep.
"The 15th General Hospital," the man responded. So that means I'm in Belgium, Ben thought. He supposed it didn't really matter where he was until he got back to the base. When he saw the American flag waving on the door of the base, he began to relax. He would stay here until he finished healing.
Ben entered the structure feeling lonely. When he reclined on his cot, he still felt strangely empty and deserted despite the other soldiers who milled around in the base. He decided to ignore that feeling and gave in to his exhaustion. He closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.
Ben woke up only a couple hours later. He had heard the engine of a car turn off outside. He looked out the window and saw a man running toward the building from a parked Jeep. Ben recognized him; it was the man who drove him from the hospital to the base. Ben left his room and joined the other soldiers in the open area where they lounged. They all quietly awaited the man's news. The man stepped through the doorway.
"The 15th General Hospital," the man said between breaths, "was bombed earlier, less than half an hour ago." He caught Ben's eye. "There were many casualties." He paused under the gazes of the soldiers in the room, some shocked, others scared. "Let us remember those who were lost today," the man finished.
So Ben remembered them. He wondered if Marie was okay. He thought of the men who had slept in the cots to either side of his. He also thought of himself. I could be dead right now, he thought. That place really was death.
