Page:This side the trenches, with the American Red cross (IA thissidetrenches00desc).pdf/19

 ideals and their moral and physical welfare, is the essence of Home Service. Home Service applies to the families of men in all branches of the service, the regular army as well as the national guard and the national army, sailors, marines, men of the aviation corps, engineers, and the families of men and women attached to hospital units as nurses, doctors, orderlies, ambulance drivers. It has to do also with the families of soldiers of any of the allied forces living in this country, and with the families of civilians who have been wounded or killed as the direct result of war activities as, for example, through the torpedoing of a merchant vessel by a submarine.

A majority of these families will be able to live through the anxiety and stress of war times without the assistance of the Home Service of the Red Cross. But, on the other hand, the power of self-helpfulness of a large minority will be strained to the breaking point because of lack of opportunity, ill-health, misfortune, or sudden changes in living conditions brought about by the war.

Home Service is constructive. Its assurance to the men at the front or on the high seas is the greater because its purpose is to enable their families to better themselves. While all the world is turning its energy to the work of destruction or to repairing wounds that more destruction may be accomplished, the Red Cross through its Home Service is trying to build better homes and better people.

This work, moreover, differs from all the other activities of the Red Cross in one respect. Thus, the great enterprise of the Red Cross in restoring the homes which