Evening star., 1944-05-09
War Neurotics Can Make Good
In Battle and Civilian Life
Army Expert Explains Many Nervous
Casualties Are Staging Comebucks

~0SuOIttOS UlG Stu&
A jittery crooner from a dance
hall orchestra, psychoneurotic
when he entered the air forces,
swan to small island occupied by
IS Japs and in two days of hide-and-
seek killed them all With his bowie
knife.
An Army sergeant on Guadalcanal
became a psychoneurotic when he
held machine gun post for Is
hours while his company reassem-
bled and while his three Chicago
schoolmates with him were killed.
He has returned to combat.
These stories were told today in
press conference called by Army
Surg. Gen. Norman T. Kirk in the
Pentagon. Realizing that the public
is becoming alarmed at the number
OF training and battle casualties
classified as psychoneurotics, the
surgeon general asked Col. William
c. Meninger, chief of neuropsychi-
atric division, to tell what the term
means.
Many Stage Comeback.
PSychoneurotic casualties are
coming back and making good in
combat, Col. Meninger said, and, he
yentured, most of those discharged
will do we'll in civilian life. He said
that 40 per cent so classified were
salVaged for further combat duty in
front-line stations and another 40
per cent salvaged in, evacuation
hospitals, but frequently for other
duties than combat.
In answering questions after his
talk, Col. Meninger remarked that
every genius is conspicuous be-
cause OF his psycho-neurotic ten
denotes"
Would that apply to Gen. Pat
ton?" reporter asked.
That's an idea" said Col. Mem
niger when the laughter had sub
sided.
The colonel was asked If the ma
ture of this war made more psycho-
neurotics.
Yes" he said, motivation is one
reason. We had lot of enthusiasm
on the part of the public for the last
war which we don't have in this war.
for various reasons"
Wars Mobility Is Factor.
He added that In this mobile war
men scamper from foxhole to fox
hole under aerial as we'll as artillery
Commandment, instead of standing
In trenches, and that extremes of
climate, jungleS and isolation in
South Pacific islands were factors
which did not enter the last war.
Reporters asked him to tell the
full stories of the crooner and the
sergeant. They were:
The crooner was a youth whose
mother was a psychoneurotic De-
spite his nervous condition, he got
INTO the air forces as a gunner on
bomber. He was in Ia crash
landings and the 14th was a water
landing. He was the only member
OF the crew to live. He swan to a
small island and his only weapon
was his bowie knife.
When brought back from the
island on which he was found with
the bodies of IS japanese soldiers
ne was in pretty bad shape as a
pSychoneurotlc case, the colonel
SAID. He did not yet know whether
the youth had recovered sufficiently
to fly again, the colonel said. be-
cause he himself had returned to
the States shortly after the boy was
brought into South Pacific hos
pltal.
Sergeant Held OFF Japs.
The sergeant was one of four
youths from Chicago high school
who stuck together in the service
When things were going bad on
Sklrmlsh on Guadalcanal, volunteers
were called for to hold the sJaps
back while the company reformed
The sergeant held out for Is hours
hrlng his machine gun beside the
bodies of his dead schoolmates.
Finally an explosion knocked him
unconscious just before reinforce
ments reached the spot he was
holding.
Col. Meninger described the men
tai treatment given the sergeant in
the States as mostly a program of
education.
When he got to Chicago he
called upon the parents of his three
dead schoolmates and that upset
the apple cart of recovery for the
next three weeks" Col. Meninger
said, but he's back in the South
Pacific now"
Many in Civilian Life.
AS for what pSychoneurosis
means. he said civilian life is crowd
ed with phychoneutrotics who do
not come to the attention of phy-
sicianS because they manage to get
along despite their condition. He
said the mother who is too deeply
concerned about her children and
incapable of an instant'S relaxation,
the father worried over finances and
suffering strange body sensations,
the child afraid of the dark who has