The Misery of Combat Impacted Mental Health

Have you considered the actual day-to-day combat experience and how it shaped your veteran and you?

Have you stopped to consider that you are who you are in part due to your father, mother, grandfather, great grandfather’s, war experience? You inherited the things they couldn’t emotionally or mentally process and integrate? These things run your life through beliefs, behaviors, and patterns, through choices you make every day, on an unconscious level? Have you considered these day-to-day events may have led your veteran to change in many ways during and after the war? To return home somewhat broken or pieces of his or her soul missing?

In the course of your military research, do you just try to find the basic facts and leave it alone or are you digging deep into the effects and experiences of combat and service?

I am reminded daily that war is hell. Every client I work with has a story. Every record I ‘randomly’ pick up to explore teaches me something. My own family has it’s WWII trauma that I have lived. And every day I realize again that we need to acknowledge this aspect of war and begin to heal. Personally and ancestrally.

What I observe though is that most people only want the facts. It’s too painful to dig into the horrifying parts of war. We are safer and feel more comfortable just ‘honoring our heroes’ and putting them on a pedastal and ignorning the hard stuff.

How might your life shift and how might your ancestral lineage heal if you worked with the hard and painful stuff?

I’ve been working on a client project and the veteran was removed from his combat unit with the 45th Infantry Division after months of intense combat, noise, waiting, weather, and illness, for neuorsis. While records were somewhat sparse as to his medical and his service file burned, it is clear in the 45th Division records that he was not the only one to deal with the burnout and mental health issues. It was clear every month in the Medical Report for his Infantry Regiment. The things I read, we never talk about. And we should.

Are you ready to dive into some of the least graphic details?

January 1944

In January 1944, 160 men were evacuated for exposure due to the severity of the weather conditions and fighting in the last few days of December 1943. Ninety-eight (98) were evacuated for Trench Foot, 27 for exhaustion, and 35 for respiratory cases with temperature of 101° or more. Later in January, a mild flu developed in the 2^nd Bn but thankfully did not spread. The Medical Detachment reached a low of 88 men and replacements were requested.¹

February 1944

In the month of February 1944, it continued to rain and be cold and miserable. 295 soldiers were evacuated due to exposure related issues. Of these, 120 left due to Trench Foot, 132 to exhaustion, and 34 due to nasopharyngitis. Of the 132 exhaustion cases, exposure was the only factor in the cause of evacuation. The fact that the regiment was dug in on defensive position and had to remain under cover in very unfavorable conditions and weather, subject to direct and indirect enemy fire, was the primary factor. The 34 soldiers evacuated due to the cold with temperatures was exceptionally low  considering the fact of sleeping in foxholes and trenches half-full of water at freezing temperatures practically every night during the month.²

March 1944

March 1944 was not much better, weather wise than February. 106 cases of Trench Foot required men to be evacuated. Wet, Cold, and Inactivity were, in order, the three exhaustive factors. Lying in a foxhole with no movement during the daylight hours, undoubtably is an important factor, reducing muscular action and slowing circulation. Many men who had been evacuated for exhaustion prior were now being sent for evacuation with letters stating they could no longer function under fire. Interestingly, the drug Atabrine was given to the men starting 26 March and it was being enforced that the men had to take it. This is used to treat Malaria. It was used not only in the Pacific Theater but also the African and Italian areas as well.³

By the end of the year, having moved from Italy to Southern France to Germany, the stress of combat was even worse. It’s no wonder the numbers of men sent for reclassification grew each month.

October 1944

October was busy with medical issues and the reports indicate a record high number of men, 1,036, were evacuated from the unit. Constant severe fighting against tenacious resistance through heavily wooded areas, inclement weather, lack of rest, continuance of reclassification of enlisted men, all played a role. Exhaustion cases leaped skyward to 125, of which 52 men were sent for reclassification. The fall rains had set in and with rain, mud, cold, and lack of waterproof shoes, only 18 men were evacuated for trench foot. There would have been more education and reminders about keeping socks and feet dry as the winter began to set in. This was to be the worst winter in European history in decades. It all began with the rain. Things were so difficult that some aid men were made from former riflemen to ensure those numbers remained high enough to take care of wounded and dying men.⁴

November 1944

From 1 to 8 November 1944, the regiment fought in the wooded foothills of the Vosges Mountains. There were 73 Wounded in Actions (WIA) mostly due to men stepping on small Schu mines which resulted in a traumatic amputation of the foot. After this fighting, the regiment moved to a Rest Area until 24 November. Immunizations were given to most of the men to catch them up on their shots. Men were being sent to the rear for reclassification due to exhaustion, old wounds, and lack of physical stamina. Months of constant fighting, noise, fear, lack of consistent food and water, shelter, and cleanliness led to many men being unable to continue. In some ways it's amazing that more men were not reclassified each month from the units that had been in combat for more than a year. The Regiment returned to combat on 24 November.⁵

What Do We Do With the Knoweldge?

How might this experience have shaped the veteran? I often wonder how many amazing men we ruined because of these experiences. The nervous system can only handle so much before it breaks down.

What can we do when we understand the day-to-day fatigue, constant noise, possibility of illness and disease? We can explore who our veteran was after the war. If you knew the veteran prior to the war, what do you know about how they were, how they behaved, what they believed?

Then we can look at our families and ourselves. What beliefs, behaviors, patterns, choices, have always been made without consciously considering them? What can we change? What do we need to reconcile within ourselves about our veteran, family and even ourselves?

When we are willing to take a deeper look at the experiences of our veterans, we can create huge depths of healing. Are you ready?

If you would like help with your research projects, I am taking new clients. Email me at jennifer@ancestralsouls.com to start the discussion and set up a free phone consult to discuss possibilities.

1. 45^th Infantry Division Italian Campaign History January – July 1944, p. 15-16/115. RG 407, Entry 427, Boxes 9442-57. National Archives, College Park, MD.

2. 45^th Infantry Division Italian Campaign History January – July 1944, p. 54-55/115. RG 407, Entry 427, Boxes 9442-57. National Archives, College Park, MD.

3. 45^th Infantry Division Italian Campaign History January – July 1944, p. 30/115. RG 407, Entry 427, Boxes 9442-57. National Archives, College Park, MD.

4. 180^th Infantry Regiment Operations Reports Southern France, p. 125/146. RG 407, Entry 427, Boxes 9442-57. National Archives, College Park, MD.

5. 180^th Infantry Regiment Operations Reports Southern France, p. 144-145/146. RG 407, Entry 427, Boxes 9442-57. National Archives, College Park, MD.