675875 As a disabled soldier or sailor you should remember always that the Surgeon General's Office and all its employees and the Federal Board for Vocational Education and all its employees are mutually interested in your welfare solely. They have arranged a definite plan of cooperation to help you in every possible way. You can not afford to leave the hospital until the medical officers have done everything that they can for you to restore you to physical health and strength. Any other course will interfere with your vocational success later. Furthermore, you should by all means take advantage of the educa= tional opportunities which the hospital has provided for you. While you are making up your mind what line of work you want to follow you should take advantage of the opportunities to try yourself out in the different lines of activities which are provided at the hospital. When once you have made up your mind as to the employment you want to enter or the kind of training you want the Federal Board to give you after you leave the hospital, you should ask the vocational officers at the hospital to provide for you the kind of training which will advance you in the direction of the occupation which you expect to follow or for which you expect to be trained after you leave the hospital. You will find the educational officers at the hospital eager to render this service for you, and you should consult them early in your hospital career. All disabled soldiers in hospitals who want information about reeducation should ask any instructor of the Hospital Educational Seryice or the representative of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Men discharged from the military or naval service who want information should write to or call at the office of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, D. C., or to the District Office of the Federal Board of the district in which he is located. The district offices of the Board are located at the following points, respectively: Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle. 10 THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN DISABLED IN THE WAR. THE OBJECT OF THIS PAMPHLET IS TO INFORM ALL THOSE INTERESTED AS TO What are your present circumstances, you who have returned from the battle field wounded more or less seriously, or you who have lost a limb, or you who have been handicapped by disease contracted in the service? You had thought of dying, and you find yourself living-happy to be in this quiet hospital. Yet, as you are about to taste the unalloyed joy of being alive, you suddenly remember your wounds, your disability, and you say to yourself: "No; I am not as I used to be; without doubt my future is wrecked; what am I to do now?" "What am I to do now?"--that is the question we want to answer. If, in your opinion, and in the opinion of those looking after you, your injury is such as to allow you to take up again your former occupation, IN YOUR OWN INTEREST do so. You will most probably be more efficient in your previous calling, even though handicapped, than you would be in a newly acquired one. If you can be helped by training before returning to your old occupation, Uncle Sam will provide it for you through the Hospital Educational Service, while you are a patient, and through the Federal Board for Vocational Education after you are discharged from the service. If, however, you must take up a new occupation because you have been so unfortunate as to be disabled so that you can not go into your old occupation, to whom will you address yourself for guidance in the choice and carrying out of such reeducation? This question, which so many before you have asked of themselves, and which we have helped solve. and which you ask of yourself in your turn, perhaps at this very moment, is the question that we propose to help you in solving. You undoubtedly know of the Educational Service in the hospital. It is a part of the military organization. It is under military officers and is responsible through the commanding officer to the Surgeon General. It furnishes curative occupations to give you, if you need it, the use again of disabled parts of the body. It gives you, if you wish them, practical courses to assist you in fitting yourself for |
