"Because of this very individual aspect of the war, unit morale, unit cohesion and unit identification suffered tremendously." (Goodwin 1989). The veterans of World War II spent weeks or in extreme cases even months with their respective units returning on ships, or planes from all over the world. During these long trips home, the veterans had the closeness and emotional support of one another to go through all the things that they had experienced together (Loughrey 99). The exact opposite happened to the Vietnam veteran. The solitary plane ride home with complete strangers and a head full of grief for all the death that he had seen produced great anxiety for the returning soldier. Confusion as to what would happen next tore at the joy that he felt in being alive and going away from the war, back to his home where he belonged. .
This fantasy day would actually often bring a harsh reality to for many soldiers, when they returned home and saw that they had drastically changed and so had the country that they thought they knew. But on the battlefield, the DEROS date was revered and looked upon as a day that will take everything from the war away, and life would return to normal (Goodwin 1989).
In order to accomplish the task of surviving 365 days of war, the soldiers had to keep in mind the day of their DEROS date. To keep in mind how important each day of being alive was, the soldiers had made calendars that had 365 spaces to mark off, and thus the calendars became a way of judging one another. .
The GIs overtly displayed these calendars to one another. Those with the shortest time left in the country were praised by others and would lead their peers on a fantasy excursion of how wonderful and carefree life would be as soon as they returned home. For many, this became an almost daily ritual. For those who may have been struggling with a psychological breakdown due to the stresses of combat, the DEROS fantasy served as a major prophylactic to actual overt symptoms of acute combat reaction.
