Content note: Photograph of a badly wounded soldier in a hospital bed receiving plasma and transfusion. This object is shown as it was published. Why
I'd have been a goner
Army Nurse Corps recruiting sheet: a full-page photograph of a wounded infantryman in a hospital bed with a plasma line in his arm, a nurse's profile at upper left and his first-person account below. Headline: "I'd have been a goner . . ." The technique is testimonial, a named soldier vouching for the nurses.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1944
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. Army Nurse Corps
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Themes
- War and the military, Health, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
U.S. Army Nurse Corps. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1044 (NAID 514570).
Text on the object
"I'D HAVE BEEN A GONER . . ." [photograph caption:] STAFF SERGEANT JOHN SCHUSTER, infantryman from Stelton, New Jersey "'Hit the ditch, boys; here come the Jerries.' Like the rest of the men I dove for the nearest hedgerow in a Normandy field on the road to St. Lo. The low-flying planes dumped their bombs along the road. Only one missed and that one hit near me. I was badly wounded by the shell fragments and the next thing I knew I was in an evacuation hospital and an Army nurse was giving me blood plasma. If it hadn't been for that I'd have been a goner. I'm an old hand at plasma for I've had it twenty times. Now they're giving me whole-blood transfusions. There were Army nurses with me all the time and, tired as many of them were, they'd spend their off-duty time with us wounded men, helping to bring us back to where we thought things were really worth fighting for. We need all the nurses we can get. If you can, join the Army Nurse Corps." MORE NURSES ARE NEEDED U. S. ARMY NURSE CORPS [imprint:] P-153--RPB--9-5-44--20M
