NERVOUS G.I.'s WHO NEVER SAW COMBAT

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5299, 11 January 1947, Page 2

NERVOUS G.I.'s WHO NEVER SAW COMBAT

Brig.-Gen. Elliott D. Cooke of the Jnited States Army in a book recentf publis'hed, states that the Army_ earned early in 1943 that nearly as nany men were being discharged for eal or feigned disabilities as were eing indueted. Most of the discharges were for eurotic and psychotic afflictions and an f'well up into six figures," Genral Gooke said in his book entitled All But Me and Thee," published y the Infantry Journal Press. General Gooke said he reported o General G. C. Marshall, Chief of Itaff, that among- those discharged s psychoneurotics, some were sufferng from emotional disturbances aused by combat, but 80 to 90 per ent. were "just dead beats — men /ho learned how to feign symptoms nd win medical discharges for hysical disabilities." "Current calculations indicate that •ot less than 40 per cent. of all. men !rawing pensions for physical dis- ' bility are NP cases," he wrote. "Certaijnly nlot more than 10 of hat 40 per cent. could possibly have een combat. Right now, more than . 00,000 men are drawing compensaion because of being nervous in the ■ervice, and the cost to our people s well up into the millions." General Gooke, a member of the nspector-Generals Department, was issigned by General Marshall to in■estigate the extent of neuroses and isychoses in the Army.