Hemingway's WWI Service

During WWI, Ernest Hemingway joined the Red Cross Ambulance Service where he was sent to Italy, helping to gather the dead and tend to wounded soldiers. On July 8, 1918, while volunteering to pass out chocolate bars to men at a forward listening post, he was caught in the blast of an enemy mortar shell, injured by over 220 pieces of shrapnel, and was subsequently shot by an enemy machine gunner.