Editing Ernest Hemingway (section)

==World War I==
[[File:Ernest Hemingway in Milan 1918 retouched 3.jpg|thumb|upright=.85|Hemingway as a [[First lieutenant|1st Lt.]] in the A.R.C., in late 1918. In Northern Italy, he drove ambulances for two months until he was wounded|alt= photograph of a young man dressed in a military uniform]]
Hemingway wanted to go to war and tried to enlist in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] but was not accepted because he had poor eyesight.<ref>Meyers (1985), 26</ref> Instead he volunteered to a [[Red Cross]] recruitment effort in December 1917 and signed on to be an ambulance driver with the [[American Red Cross Motor Corps]] in Italy.<ref>Mellow (1992), 48–49</ref> In May 1918, he sailed from New York, and arrived in Paris as the city was under bombardment from German artillery.<ref name="Meyers p27ff">Meyers (1985), 27–31</ref> That June he arrived at the [[Italian Front (World War I)|Italian Front]], holding the ranks of [[second lieutenant]] ([[American Red Cross|A.R.C.]]) and ''sottotenente'' ([[Italian Army]]) simultaneously.<ref>Hutchisson (2016), 26</ref> On his first day in [[Milan]], he was sent to the scene of a [[munitions factory]] explosion to join rescuers retrieving the shredded remains of female workers. He described the incident in his 1932 non-fiction book ''[[Death in the Afternoon]]'': "I remember that after we searched quite thoroughly for the complete dead we collected fragments."<ref name="Mellow57ff">Mellow (1992), 57–60</ref> A few days later, he was stationed at [[Fossalta di Piave]].<ref name="Mellow57ff"/>

On July 8, right after bringing chocolate and cigarettes from the canteen to the men at the front line, the group came under mortar fire. Hemingway was seriously wounded.<ref name="Mellow57ff" /> Despite his wounds, he assisted Italian soldiers to safety, for which he was decorated with the [[War Merit Cross (Italy)|Italian War Merit Cross]] (''Croce al Merito di Guerra'') and with the Italian [[Silver Medal of Military Valor]] (''Medaglia d'argento al valor militare'').<ref group="note">On awarding the medal, the Italians wrote of Hemingway: "Gravely wounded by numerou s pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated." See Mellow (1992), p. 61</ref><ref>Hutchisson (2016), 28</ref><ref>Baker (1981), 247</ref> For his deed, he was promoted to [[first lieutenant]] (A.R.C.) and ''tenente'' (Italian Army).<ref>Baker (1981), 17</ref>

He was only 18 at the time. Hemingway later said of the incident: "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you&nbsp;... Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you."<ref name="Putnam">{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/hemingway.html|
title=Hemingway on War and Its Aftermath|last= Putnam |first= Thomas|date=August 15, 2016|website=archives.gov|access-date=July 11, 2017|archive-date=October 18, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018094656/http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/hemingway.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He sustained severe shrapnel wounds to both legs, underwent an immediate operation at a distribution center, and spent five days at a field hospital, before he was transferred for recuperation to the Red Cross hospital in Milan.<ref name="Desnoyers p3">Desnoyers, 3</ref> He spent six months at the hospital, where he met [[Eric Dorman-Smith|"Chink" Dorman-Smith]]. The two formed a strong friendship that lasted for decades.<ref>Meyers (1985), 34, 37–42</ref>

[[File:Ernest Hemingway recuperates from wounds in Milan, 1918.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|In Milan in 1918|alt=young man on crutches]]
While recuperating, Hemingway fell in love with [[Agnes von Kurowsky]], a Red Cross nurse seven years his senior. When Hemingway returned to the United States in January 1919, he believed Agnes would join him within months, and the two would marry. Instead, he received a letter from her in March with news that she was engaged to an Italian officer. Biographer [[Jeffrey Meyers]] writes Agnes's rejection devastated and scarred the young man. In future relationships Hemingway followed a pattern of abandoning a wife before she abandoned him.<ref name="Meyers p37ff">Meyers (1985), 37–42</ref> One of Hemingway's closest friendships from his Red Cross service was with William "Bill" Dodge Horne Jr., a fellow ambulance driver in Italy. Horne would later become a groomsman at Hemingway's first wedding and an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. Horne preserved a personal archive of their correspondence, photographs, and recollections—materials now housed at Princeton University Library.<ref name="PrincetonHorneCollection">{{cite web |title=William Dodge Horne Collection of Ernest Hemingway |url=https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_C1435 |access-date=April 25, 2025 |publisher=Princeton University Library}}</ref><ref name="PAWHemingwayRecollections">{{cite web |last=Stamler |first=Jonathan |date=July 14, 2021 |title=Friends for Life: Alums' Recollections of Hemingway |url=https://paw.princeton.edu/article/friends-life-alums-recollections-hemingway |access-date= April 25, 2025 |website=Princeton Alumni Weekly |publisher=Princeton University}}</ref><ref name="QuintessentialBarrington">{{cite web |last=Worden |first=Darla |date=July–August 2021 |title=Quintessential America: Hemingway in the Bighorns |url=https://www.quintessentialbarrington.com/ja21-quintessential-america/ |access-date=April 25, 2025 |website=Quintessential Barrington}}</ref><ref name="PrincetonFindingAid">{{cite web |title=William Dodge Horne Collection of Ernest Hemingway |url=https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/PRIN_MUDD_C1435 |access-date=April 25, 2025 |website=UPenn Finding Aids |publisher=Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections}}</ref>

His return home in 1919 was a difficult time of readjustment. Before the age of 20, he had gained from the war a maturity that was at odds with living at home without a job and with the need for recuperation.<ref name="Meyers45ff">Meyers (1985), 45–53</ref> As biographer [[Michael S. Reynolds]] explains, "Hemingway could not really tell his parents what he thought when he saw his bloody knee." He was not able to tell them how scared he had been "in another country with surgeons who could not tell him in English if his leg was coming off or not."<ref>Reynolds (1998), 21</ref>

That September, he went on a fishing and camping trip with high school friends to the back-country of [[Michigan]]'s [[Upper Peninsula of Michigan|Upper Peninsula]].<ref name="Putnam" /> The trip became the inspiration for his short story "[[Big Two-Hearted River]]", in which the [[Autobiographical novel|semi-autobiographical]] character [[Nick Adams (character)|Nick Adams]] takes to the country to find solitude after coming home from war.<ref>Mellow (1992), 101</ref> A family friend offered Hemingway a job in [[Toronto]], and with nothing else to do, he accepted. Late that year, he began as a freelancer and staff writer for the ''[[Star Weekly|Toronto Star Weekly]]''. He returned to Michigan the next June<ref name="Meyers45ff" /> and then moved to Chicago in September 1920 to live with friends, while still filing stories for the ''[[Toronto Star]]''.<ref name="Meyers pp56-59" /> In Chicago, he worked as an associate editor of the monthly journal ''Cooperative Commonwealth'', where he met novelist [[Sherwood Anderson]].<ref name="Meyers pp56-59">Meyers (1985), 56–58</ref>

He met [[Hadley Richardson]] through his roommate's sister. Later, he claimed, "I knew she was the girl I was going to marry."<ref name="Kert pp83-90" /> Red-haired, with a "nurturing instinct", Hadley was eight years older than Hemingway.<ref name="Kert pp83-90" /> Despite the age difference, she seemed less mature than usual for a woman her age, probably because of her overprotective mother.<ref name="Oliver p139">Oliver (1999), 139</ref> Bernice Kert, author of ''The Hemingway Women'', claims Hadley was "evocative" of Agnes, but Agnes lacked Hadley's childishness. After exchanging letters for a few months, Hemingway and Hadley decided to marry and travel to Europe.<ref name="Kert pp83-90">Kert (1983), 83–90</ref>

They wanted to visit Rome, but Sherwood Anderson convinced them to go to Paris instead, writing letters of introduction for the young couple.<ref name="Baker 1972 pp7">Baker (1972), 7</ref> They were married on September 3, 1921. Two months later, Hemingway signed on as a foreign correspondent for the ''Toronto Star'' and the couple left for Paris. Of Hemingway's marriage to Hadley, Meyers claims: "With Hadley, Hemingway achieved everything he had hoped for with Agnes: the love of a beautiful woman, a comfortable income, a life in Europe."<ref name="Meyers pp60–62">Meyers (1985), 60–62</ref>