Activation of new aaa units - Air Defense Artillery

MANAGING MEN*
By Samuel Henry Kraines, M.D.
PSYCHIATRIC PROBLEMS AMONG SOLDIERS
There are four main kinds of mental problems which the
unit leader will see in the service. These mental difficulties
will be discussed here not from the medical point of view
but as the commissioned and noncommissioned officersees
them and must deal with them. Too often serious mental
conditions arise in the service but because they are not
recognized or because they are thought to be the result of
malingering, the soldier is improperly treated. As a result
many such men develop severe disciplinary problems or
become completely "broken down" mentally. Moreover,
many of the "nen-ous breakdmNns,"are the result of minor
arm):or personal problems, so that in many cases the unit
leader can actuallv treat these nervous conditions. Even
more important, by use of the right principles of human
thinking the sergeant can PREVENT nen'ous breakdowns.
The four main kinds of mental illness seen in the service
are;
Feeblemindedness-or "dumbness"
Neuroses-or severe nervousness
Psychopathic personalities-or peculiar persons
Psychoses-or insanity.
Practically speaking, most of the mental problems in the
armv center about the first two, feeblemindedness and
neu~oses.The last two conditions are much less common
and need more expert diagnosis and treatment.
Feeblemindedness.
" From a layman's point of view feeblemindedness is
dumbness." But there are various degrees of this condition,
and various causes. Some men with feeblemindedness can
be transformed into good soldiers-while others are \\"orthless.Only
a thorough study and trial can provide the correct
answer.
All intelligence (and we are not being scientifically exact)
lies in the brain. ;,\lan's superiority over the animal is
the result of his larger brain. The m'erage human brain
weighs3t? pounds and, according to one scientist contains
O\'erten billion brain cells.
Only a small part of the brain is related to intelligence.
~lost of the brain is composed of "white matter" \\"hich is
hke telephone wires. i\Iost of the ten billion (some say as
high as twenty billion) brain cells lie in the cortex oF" the
brain which i; the outer cm:ering and is about one-tenth of
--
an inch thick. The cortex \\"hichcontains all the brain cells
concerned \vlth thinking covers the brain (and is part of
*Extracted from the book of the same tUffie by permission of the
author, Copyrighted by the author in 1946, -
it) like the skin covers the body, and fits into every groove
and indentation.
Native intelligence seems to be dependent upon the
number of certain kinds of these brain cells and the number
of connections between them. However, this problem is not
clearly solved, and many new discoveries have yet to be
made in the field. For the purposes of this discussion, however,
we can assume that if a man has a large number of
his brain cells destroyed he has little intelligence left,
whereas the more he has intact the better is his intelligence.
Belmv "normal" intelligence, in general, is due to three
main causes; a) hereditv, b) disease of the brftin, and c)
injury to the brain. Th~ most common cause seems to be
heredity. Just how it acts we do not know, but some children
are born ~withvery little intelligence and never develop
very mudil no matter how much schooling they have.
Children born -.b.-ithlittle intelligence do not walk, talk, or
grow teeth till much later than the average child. Similarly,
\"hen in early childhood a disease strikes the brain cortex
and destrovs'manv brain cells, feeblemindedness may result..
, .
The feebl~minded person has so few brain cells that he
CANNOT learn as much as the average person no matter
how much teaching is given. It is important to understand
the difference between men who are uneducated and men
who are feebleminded. The uneducated man mav have
the normal amount of brain cells but he mav not h;ve had
the opportunity to go to school. Such a man ~ay be illiterate
and be unable even to sign his own name-but he may have
normal intelligence and \vill thus be able to learn rapidly if
properly taught. On the other hand, a man may be feebleminded
because of a lack of brain cells and no amount of
education could make him have "normal" intelligence.
For this reason it is well to ask each man who is illiterate
how far he went in school. If he had a chance to go to
school but didn't learn at least to read and write then the
chances are that he is feebleminded. It is important to ask
the soldier at what age he left school because the man who
left the fifth grade of grammar school at the age of ten may
have normal intelligence; if he only reached the fifth grade
of school despite continuous attendance until he was S1..\:teen
vears old, as many of our case histories show, then
the chances are that h~ is mentallv retarded.
There is another common sign 'of feeblemindedness in
the army-and that is poor coordination. \\'bile many men
\\'ho are mildly feebleminded can learn to be \vell coordinated,
at first ~ost of them find coordination difficult. You
will find that most of them cannot perform the flanking
mm-ements quickly, that they turn the wrong \my \vhen a