 This is a typical example of chronic anxiety, sometimes called the old sergeant syndrome. Along with other severe casualties, he is sent to installations in the Army Zone where additional facilities are available for prolonged psychiatric treatment. In the Army Zone, a larger staff of psychiatrists is maintained to afford individual attention to each patient. The veteran sergeant is again interviewed. I've been overseas about 30 months. Just how did the shells affect you, Sergeant? Well, they affected me pretty bad. It seems I've gone as far as I can and cracked up. How do you feel now? As long as I'm not under fire, okay. Sergeant, how do you think you'd work out on another job? Say, a depot. Can you do that? I think so, sir. Reassignment is necessary for many of these cases. However, return to combat is often possible after further treatment. Here is Bill Brown after three weeks. Come around nicely, Bill. I thought you would. I didn't. Not for a time anyway. By the way, do you ever hear from any of the men in your old outfit? No mail, but a couple of the fellas did stop in to see me. Bill, how was it seeing those fellas again? Does it make you feel that you wanted to get back with them? It's a tough question. You know, after what happened, I really don't want to go back. I think it's what I ought to do. You feel you'd be all right on full duty? It took a lot to knock me out the first time. I guess I'll do as well as the next man. Bill Brown's recovery is not unusual. Although the number of cases returned to combat decreases sharply as treatment is more removed from the front lines. But more severe cases require intensive forms of therapy. Just relax. Take it easy and do what I tell you. Here is an amnesia case who has forgotten everything that happened since he was blown out of his foxhole. This won't hurt you. Count slowly now. One, three. The injection of a sedative allows the patient to relive his battle experiences and, with the doctor's help, face them again. Three, three. Now, Alan, you're on the battlefield. The shells are coming in. What's that shell? Duck! The first thing all around. Where are you? Where are you? He's dead. What happens now? Take the ridge. There's a lot of men in the company. The Germans surrender. They throw their guns away, ask for cigarettes. They want to look at our knives, say Comrades. Comrades, help. Shoot my best buddy with the shells. Get me out of here. Tom. Tom. I'm here. What happened after you captured the ridge? You'll be all right. You're safe now. Safe now. Wake up. Wake up now. You were in a lot of trouble. You're better now. Shells didn't hurt you. This treatment, when employed early, reduces the danger of chronic neurosis. Although not a magic cure-all, it often produces dramatic results with the acute neuroses resulting from the stress of battle. The retarded patient in later interviews is still depressed and anxious, but his depression and feelings of guilt have lifted enough so that he is better able to respond to the interviewer. What sort of a person were you as a child? I was sick much. Inferiority complex. Too bad. Just what do you mean? I was a child. I didn't think I was as good as anybody else. Did you go in for sports and play with other children? No, sir. I was in trouble. I couldn't make any friends. How did you react as a child to dead people? Oh, I couldn't look at them. How did they make you feel? I couldn't stand anything bad. Did you ever get into a fight? No, sir. I never cared for fights and killed ones. In a street fight, I had hit the curb. Just lay there to tell my parents about it for years. How old were you then? About six. Did anything like that ever happen again? Not until I got into combat.