In World War II, Lieutenant General Sir William Slim stopped the longest, most humiliating retreat in the history of the British Army. When he assumed command in Burma in April 1942, the health of his troops was dismal. The malaria rate was 84 percent per year of total troop strength, even higher among the forward troops. A simple calculation showed me that at this rate my army would have melted away. Indeed it was doing so before my eyes.
Good doctors are of no use without good discipline.
More than half the battle against disease is not fought by doctors, but by regimental officers. Slowly, but with increasing rapidity, as all of us, commanders, doctors, regimental officers, staff officers, and NCOs united in the drive against sickness, results began to appear. On the chart that hung on my wall the curves of admissions to hospitals and malaria in forward units sank lower and lower, until in 1945 the sickness rate for the whole 14th Army was one per thousand per day. The threat to force readiness that challenged General Slim and his army similarly confronts our forces today. In 1993, a large percentage of Marines and soldiers in certain units participating in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia developed malaria.