, that contain a smooth easy following of ideas. He would later adapt this style to his fiction. In May of 1918, Hemingway became an honorary second lieutenant in the Red Cross. He could not join the army due to a defective left eye (resentfully inherited from his mother). On his first day of service across seas, he and other ambulance drivers were assigned the horrific duty of picking up body parts from an exploded munitions factory. Death, mostly of women, on such a scale was most definitely another very shocking moment in Hemingway's young life. But he soon recovered from this experience and became known as the man who was always where the action is. He would often sneak cigarettes and chocolate to soldiers on the Italian front. It was on one of these occasions that he was severely wounded by an Austrian trench mortar. Even with over a hundred pieces of shrapnel and an Austrian machine gun bullet logged in his leg he managed to carry a wounded soldier a hundred yards to safety. He got the Italian Medal of Valor for his courageous action. He spent his recovery time at the Ospedale Croce Rossa Americana, in Milan. It is there that he met and fell for a thirty year-old nurse called Agnes Hannah. To Ernest's disappointment, Agnes was not willing to embark in a relationship. Ernest, who had not yet turned twenty, who was a war hero, a journalist and a wounded soldier, was too young for beautiful Agnes . With the will to write fiction, he moved to Chicago where most of his work was refused. He lived by writing for the Toronto Star and working as a sparing partner for boxers. It was in Chicago that Hemingway met Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. She was an innocent young woman with graceful features and a strong attraction for the eight year younger Hemingway. Not having much income and wanting to marry Hadley, Ernest chose to move to Paris. Hemingway managed to convince the Toronto Star to accept a series of Letters from Europe. The young coupl...
