The “psychiatric problem” posed by the returning veteran is a popular subject nowadays. Since 1942, it has been a constant topic for discussion at meetings of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, the favorite theme of some psychiatric lecturers, and the subject of numberless newspaper articles. Some professional workers have given us to understand that most, if not all, returning servicemen have so changed in attitudes and have developed such deep conflicts within themselves and such strong hostility toward the civilian population that they are in reality psychiatric cases and will require the prolonged and solicitous attention of psychiatrists, social workers, and clinical psychologists in order to make themselves adaptable to post-war civilian life. In short, upon returning home from military service, they will be in dire need of “psychiatric rehabilitation.”
“Rehabilitation” in general means many things and one is not always sure to just what aspect of this multi-faceted term a speaker or writer may be referring when he asserts its necessity. It may mean the “rehabilitation” of the war-disabled, that is, the psychological counseling and vocational training of the blind and the crippled in order that they may have a real function in the workaday world and thus cease to be “patients” and once again become citizens. Surely no one would argue against the need or desirability of “rehabilitation” in this meaning of the term. It may also mean psychological guidance, psychiatric treatment, or custodial care for those men whose minds have become warped as a result of harrowing war experiences—men who previously were in reasonably good mental health but whose intellectual and emotional efficiency became impaired following the sinking of their ship, participation in an arduous offensive, or the ordeal of a Jap prison camp. The necessity of “rehabilitation” in this meaning of the term can also be accepted without discussion. But “rehabilitation” is also used in a vague way to denote certain procedures deemed to be necessary for practically all returning servicemen. Foremost among these allegedly necessary procedures is psychiatric treatment. Apparently the great mass of servicemen are suffering from a great “war neurosis,” manifested in emotional instability, resentment toward society in general, and inability to form normal civilian attachments.
One may wonder how it has come about that some psychiatrists and social workers have been led to the conviction that rehabilitation (in this psychiatric sense) of returning servicemen constitutes a major post-war problem. Is it perhaps because of their special experience with the “returning servicemen” whom they treated in 1942 and 1943 and from which special experience they have made generalizations concerning all servicemen—generalizations which are not necessarily valid? The great bulk of servicemen discharged back to civilian life in 1942 and 1943 returned not from theaters of war but from training camps. They had been tried and found wanting. On one basis or another they proved to be inadequate. They were lacking either in intelligence or energy or emotional stability or sometimes simply in motivation to serve their country. It was men of these types who first received the eager attentions of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers in rehabilitation centers. These professional workers must surely have been appalled at the amount and character of psychopathology they found in these men. If they did not clearly recognize that they were dealing not with returning war veterans but essentially with Army- Navy “rejects,” they could quickly have reached the conclusion that the rehabilitation of 12,000,000 men of the type they were treating in their clinics at that time was the nation’s Number 1 problem. And they would be right—if the men they saw were an adequate sample of the great mass of servicemen. But these men are not such an adequate sample. They do not represent the great majority of men in the armed forces. They are deserving of sympathy and understanding, but it is clear that individuals of this type did not fill the ranks of the divisions which fought the Japs on Tarawa and Iwo Jima and drove the Germans back from the Normandy coast to the Elbe. And so, it is perhaps justifiable to raise the question as to whether the clinicians who have been insisting on the importance of psychiatric treatment for the great mass of returning servicemen have not been misled by their initial experiences with a certain group of atypical personalities who were servicemen for a brief period of time but who quickly found their way back to civilian life.
Like all problems of this character the question of whether the typical returning serviceman will need rehabilitation is not a simple “Yes” or “No.” Rather the question resolves itself into the nature of the rehabilitation necessary or desirable for returning servicemen. Does the returning serviceman really need psychiatric treatment? Would he profit from vocational guidance? Do a significant proportion of them require post-war vocational training to enable them to earn a decent living in the peacetime world? Are they in need of what may be called “economic orientation,” that is, do they have an elementary knowledge of the facts concerning employment and unemployment, prosperity and depression in our economy? The answers to these questions should be based on factual knowledge, not on the suppositions of clinical workers and not on too sweeping generalizations based on experience with a selected group of cases not at all representative of the average serviceman. Such factual knowledge is difficult to obtain because the opportunity to study the problem is so recent. However, hints of these “unborn facts,” so to speak, can be secured from several sources: from the reported postwar anticipations of the men themselves, from studies of the home-comings of veterans from previous wars, and from observation of the behavior of the men already released.
The writer had the opportunity of interviewing a group of enlisted men who had just returned to duty after an average leave of thirty days following a tour of sea duty or foreign shore duty. He hoped through the interviews to gain some insight into the nature and adequacy of the psychological adjustment of seamen returning to their civilian environment and thus to secure some indication as to the nature of things to come. In addition the men were questioned concerning their post-war anticipations and some knowledge about their view of post-war problems was obtained. The interviews were of an informal nature and the men were encouraged to do most of the talking. Some of the results of these interviews are of interest in showing the “direction of the wind” with regard to the thinking and the attitudes of servicemen toward the civilian population and concerning post-war plans.
The best way to learn what a man thinks is to find out what he does. Two simple facts stand out concerning what our men did on leave. First, almost without exception, they went home. There they found their strongest attachment to their country in the form of their parents, wives, and sweethearts. As the interviews progressed it became clearer and clearer (if these men are representative) that the average serviceman has not lost his ties to the home folks. Rather those ties have been strengthened during the enforced separation from home. The second simple fact was the man’s strong preference for civilian rather than military company. Far from seeking out other servicemen for companionship, he definitely preferred to renew prewar civilian relationships. Many of the men (and all but two had been on active duty in the Navy over 17 months) expressed the sentiment that they were essentially “civilians in uniform,” ready to do the job during the war but oriented toward a speedy return to civilian life after V-J Day.
It appears, then, that the men’s absence from home did not lead to a weakening of family ties. On the contrary, one’s impression was that in a sizable proportion of cases the ties to home were strengthened and deep emotional reactions to home activated by the long absence. Among the married men there were no reports of conflict with wives. As a general rule, there was a satisfying reunion after a period of strain felt especially, perhaps, by the wife. Some of the younger men, having left home as boys of 17 years and 18 years, found their mother’s attentions irksome at times but accepted and handled the situation good-naturedly. Such cases of disappointment reaction to home as were reported were directly related to unfortunate events for which the man was not psychologically prepared, for example, the death of his mother or the separation of his parents during his absence. In general the men’s adjustment to civilian society was excellent. They found civilian company pleasant and satisfying, did not consider themselves “apart” from civilians and, as mentioned, they preferred the company of civilians to that of servicemen.
One cannot say that there was no resentment on the part of any of the men. Chief among the factors that aroused resentment (mentioned by over four-fifths of them) was the persistent questioning by civilians about the serviceman’s military activities. This unfortunate civilian habit was spontaneously complained about again and again by the men. This almost universal complaint should serve as a guide for all civilians who welcome back servicemen. It must be emphatically impressed upon civilian friends and relatives that they should not keep asking their ex- serviceman questions about his military activities and exploits. They must be made to realize that he may be self-conscious about them, that he may wish to put these experiences behind him for the time being, that his memory of them may actually be painful. In due time, as his memory of the war experience mellows and is integrated in his total experience, he will tell them about it—and enjoy the telling!
The overwhelming majority of men showed no evidence whatever that they were likely to be post-war psychiatric cases. They were reasonably well-balanced and stable, possessed a sense of humor and showed the traits of persistence and patience, with a willingness to see the thing through, to a degree which could well be emulated by their civilian brothers and sisters. That the task of adjusting the post-war civilian life may be more complex and difficult for the returning serviceman than for civilians is probable. The unique experiences of the serviceman has led to changes in his personality and character. In his absence, the domestic economy and society has also changed. He faces a somewhat different society than the one he left and, as is true of any adjustment situation, special difficulties beset the newcomer. These difficulties may be psychological, that is, interpersonal in nature as well as economic. As with all life problems there will be successes, failures, compromises. But they will be the successes and failures and compromises of a reasonably normal personality, not those of a pathological individual. Here all our social resources devoted to the help of the individual—medicine, psychology, social work, the church and, above all, the family—have a role to play in facilitating the post-war psychological adjustment of the returning veteran.
Most of the men did not anticipate changing their residence after the war. They were going home and planned to stay there. About 10 per cent had definite plans to continue their schooling and were familiar with the educational provisions of the “GI Bill of Rights.” Taken as a group, the men were young, more than half being less than 22 years old. About two-thirds had been in the Navy over two years. About one-half of them had come into the Navy directly from school or had been out of school less than a year. As a group, they were not at all settled, either vocationally or economically, at the time when they had entered the Navy. Most of them did not leave relatively permanent jobs nor were they established in a business or trade. The only specialized vocational training possessed by many of them was whatever training they had in the Navy. And such vocational training may or may not be applicable to post-war civilian life.
When questioned about post-war plans, less than one-quarter of the men anticipated that there might be an unemployment problem after the war. The majority had no such anxiety. Those who admitted the possibility of a period of widespread unemployment felt confident of their ability to find and hold a job even if economic conditions were poor. Others were sure that they would get back their old jobs. Still others justified their optimistic expectations by pointing out that they could easily have secured a job while they were on leave! This point of view on the part of the Navy men seems to the writer to show a strikingly defective “economic orientation” with a lack of realization that “hard times” with widespread unemployment is a possibility. It is all too evident that these men are not mentally prepared for such a contingency. The reasons for this economic naivete are probably to be found in the particular personal and vocational history of this group of young men. They were small children during the depression years of 1930-33 and can hardly be expected to have a vivid memory of the economic characteristics of that period. Then, those seeking or holding jobs prior to entering the Navy were doing so during the expansive period of 1939-42 when demand for workers steadily increased, wages steadily rose, and jobs were progressively easier to obtain. Thus to most of these men the artificial economic situation induced first by the preparation for war and then by the war itself represents the only economic scene of which they have any knowledge and they appear to have assumed that the wartime demand for labor was a permanent phenomenon.
The extent to which their specific training in the Navy has developed in these men vocational skills that arc applicable to civilian life is not readily determined. Some ratings, such as that of yeoman or storekeeper, carry with them training which will be a decided asset to the men. To other men, who have held ratings such as gunner’s mate or pharmacist’s mate, it will not be clear just how much “market value” their training will have in the post-war civilian economy. Certain it is that great numbers of men will return to civilian life without, on the surface at least, a specific trade or skill which they can readily utilize for the purpose of earning a living. In many cases, job analyses by experts will disclose that the skills the man has acquired in the Navy are applicable to various civilian trades—trades for which he never imagined he had any qualifications. However, in other cases, it will be obvious that some vocational training is necessary to bring the veteran out of the unskilled labor category.
In summary, one finds that these men do not appear to require psychiatric treatment upon returning to civilian life. In mental balance and emotional stability they compare very favorably with the civilian population. It does seem, however, that while they arc psychologically mature, a great number will be economically and vocationally undeveloped, lacking readily applicable occupational skills. These men will require vocational orientation, guidance, and training. Above all, they will need “vocational placement,” a term that simply means jobs— lots of them. If these economic needs are met, we shall not need to be concerned about “psychiatric” problems.