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Factors and Responses to Combat Exhaustion


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             Combat exhaustion symptoms included a soldier being depressed or dispirited, apathetic and careless, tired, nervous, confused, or distraught and the soldier might have a blank stare. These soldiers were fed up with the war because of all the burdens it put on each soldier. They just wanted out of the war. Some would go as far as to shoot themselves in the legs to escape battle. The determining factors for this condition were a lack of adequate training or war experience, a soldier's psychological stability and fear of combat, fatigue, hunger, and extended time in combat. The lack of war experience is why many new soldiers developed combat exhaustion. However, there were also many war veterans who were just so overburdened that they also developed combat exhaustion. Combat exhaustion affected thousands of soldiers and various factors contribute to the development of it. .
             The lack of proper and adequate training for combat was one contributing factor to combat exhaustion. Many soldiers were unprepared for this sudden thrust into war. One soldier stated that soldiers seemed "pathetic" and not like warriors at all. He said that soldiers were just "American boys who by mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands, sneaking up a death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country." Young American men were basically dumped onto the battlefield. Soldiers simply did not receive the quality of training they needed to confidently fight. Training did not prepare soldiers for coping with the fear they would encounter. A strong fear among soldiers was that of enemy weapons. Soldiers "linked fear with a weapon's noise" or lack thereof. This is why since mortars flew quietly, they were the most feared. Soldiers did not know how to cope with these things. This lack of knowing how to handle things may have been what Everett Neal, an American soldier, was referring to when he said, "There is no way to prepare for the shock of real combat.


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