“In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it anymore.” This sentence begins a touching short story about soldiers who don't go to WW1 "anymore" because they are recuperating from war-related wounds. The story begins with a shared sense of camaraderie as the narrator feels he is communicating well in Italian until the major tells him that he needs to work on his grammar. He begins to feel a growing sense of alienation not only because of his deficiency in communicating but also because he realizes that he got his medal, not for bravery but because he was an American.
Sadly, they do not really believe in the machines that are supposed to heal them but make sure to go to the hospital every day for therapy.
The story reflects a sense of the futility of war and also of human connection itself. The ending is haunting. ( )

http://apo.cmaisonneuve.qc.ca/villanova/hemingway/original.htm

War...injury...marriage...death. I struggle with Hemingway simply because I find him extremely wordy. This story did not move me at all. I feel as though I should have been moved by the major and his wife, but I just wasn't.