Photo of the Day

What it was like.

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,

A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,

US troops in the Hürtgen Forest, World War II, November 1944.

Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,

Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,

Wounded troops at a temporary field hospital near Fredericksburg, Virginia, during the US Civil War, 1864.

We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,

Lutheran Church in Frederick, Maryland, used as a hospital after the Battle of Antietam, US Civil War, September 1862.

’Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,

Temporary US field hospital in France during World War II, 1944.

Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,

Casualties arrive at the Naval Support Activity Station Hospital in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1968. The wounded were transferred from the helicopters to the triage area on canvas-covered stretchers. These were set on sawhorses, where they became examination tables and sometimes operating tables.

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,

US field hospital in a French church, World War I, 1918.

By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,

US Marines carry a dead Marine to a helicopter during the Vietnam War, June 20, 1967.

At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death

(he is shot in the abdomen),

Medical personnel in a temporary aid station set up in partly cleared antitank ditch, Omaha Beach, Normandy, during World War II, June 6, 1944.

I stanch the blood temporarily (the youngster’s face is white as a lily),

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,

A wounded Marine waits for the stretcher bearers to come for him, Peleliu, in the South Pacific during World War II, September 1944.

Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead,

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, odor of blood,

US medical personnel in Landstuhl, Germany, rush a wounded US soldier from an ambulance into the hospital during the US war in Iraq, December 22, 2004.

The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill’d,

Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,

Surgeon Anson Hurd stands among tents sheltering men wounded in the Battle of Antietam, US Civil War, September 1862.

An occasional scream or cry, the doctor’s shouted orders or calls,

The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,

During the US Civil War, amputations were the customary treatment for war wounds, to reduce the risk of gangrene.

These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,

Then hear outside the orders given, ‘Fall in, my men, fall in’;

US Marines carry a wounded man to an evacuation site in South Vietnam, 1966.

But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,

Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,

US troops march north during the Korean War, September 1950.

Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,

The unknown road still marching.

******************************

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Text: Walt Whitman, ‘A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown,’ first published in ‘Drum-Taps’ (1865).

Banner image: American Expeditionary Forces troops in France, 1918.