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'An Equal Burden' is a scholarly study focusing on the men of the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War. In using official documents, personal narratives, and cultural artefacts, Jessica Meyer offers an in-depth exploration on the men who served in uniform but in a non-combative role. An Equal Burden forms the first scholarly study of the Army Medical Services in the First World War to focus on the roles and experiences of the men of the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). These men, through their work as stretcher-bearers and orderlies, provided a range of labour, both physical and emotional, in aid of the sick and wounded. They were not professional medical caregivers, yet were called upon to provide medical care, however rudimentary; they served in uniform, under military discipline, yet were forbidden, as non-combatants, from carrying weapons. Their service as men in wartime was thus unique. Structured both chronologically and thematically, this study examines the work that RAMC rankers undertook and its importance to the running of the chain of medical evacuation. It additionally explores the gendered status of these men within the medical, military, and cultural hierarchies of a society engaged in total war, locating their service within the context of that of doctors, female nurses, and combatant servicemen. Through close readings of official documents, personal papers, and cultural representations, both verbal and visual, it argues that the ranks of the RAMC formed a space in which non-commissioned servicemen, through their many roles, defined and redefined medical caregiving as men's work in wartime.

For First World War stretcher bearers, wartime landscapes had a direct impact on the work they undertook. Trenches, shell holes, mud and sand all presented challenges to their ability to carry wounded men swiftly and safely from where they were injured to aid posts and beyond. At the same time, landmarks could assist bearers in navigating the landscape they worked in, enabling these men to develop particular skills in direction-finding. This chapter uses the diaries and memoirs of British stretcher bearers to examine experiences of carrying in a range of wartime landscapes. In exploring how different landscapes shaped the labour that bearers undertook and the physical and embodied nature of the bearer's relationship with the landscape, it interrogates the masculine status of these men as non-combatant servicemen to uncover some of the relationship between landscape and masculine service identity in wartime.

"An Equal Burden forms the first scholarly study of the Army Medical Services in the First World War to focus on the roles and experiences of the men of the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). These men, through their work as stretcher bearers and orderlies, provided a range of labour, both physical and emotional, in aid of the sick and wounded. They were not professional medical caregivers, yet were called upon to provide medical care, however rudimentary; they served in uniform, under military discipline, yet were forbidden, as non-combatants, from carrying weapons. Their service as men in wartime, was thus unique. Structured both chronologically and thematically, this study examines both the work that RAMC rankers undertook and its importance to the running of the chain of medical evacuation. It additionally explores the gendered status of these men within the medical, military and cultural hierarchies of a society engaged in total war, locating their service within the context of that of doctors, female nurses and combatant servicemen. Through close readings of official documents, personal papers, and cultural representations, both verbal and visual, it argues that the ranks of the RAMC formed a space in which non-commissioned servicemen, through their many roles, defined and redefined medical caregiving as men's work in wartime."

Writing home : men's letters from the front -- Wartime diaries -- Remembering the heroic dead : letters of condolence -- 'Fit only for light work' : disabled ex-servicemen and the struggle for a domestic masculinity -- 'The very basic test of manhood' : war memoirs and the remembering of martial masculinities