FATE OF 395 MILD NEUROPSYCHIATRIC CASES SALVAGED FROM TRAINING PERIOD AND TAKEN INTO COMBAT
Abstract
1. Mild psychoneurotics (if they are dispersed among stable personalities) and mild psychopathic personalities (if they can direct their aggression mostly toward the enemy instead of toward their comrades), can be utilized with combat troops.
2. Only 9 cases of an original group of 395 mild neuropsychiatric problems, taken overseas and into combat by the 99th Infantry Division, had to be evacuated subsequently as NP casualties during the first 50 days of combat. The latter 15 days of this combat period included such stress as the Battle of the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge).
3. A total of 35 former NP problems salvaged from the precombat training period appeared on the A&D (Admission & Disposition) sheet for December 1944, as requiring evacuation for conditions other than neuropsychiatric.
4. Hence, the group of 395 potential NP casualties did very well in the first 50 days of combat, losing only 9 due to the same NP condition as diagnosed in precombat training and only 35 for conditions other than neuropsychiatric (battle wounds 14; trenchfoot 10, etc.). Therefore a total of 44 of these men were lost by evacuation from the original 395.
5. Thus, 351 mild psychoneurotic and psychopaths (who had been considered potential NP combat casualties) remained on duty for the first 50 days of combat as effectives.
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