Unfit for fighting –
Army’s NP dischargees make excellent workers in war jobs
Consideration of employers and care in placing of men are needed
By Marjorie Van de Water
Men discharged from the Army for neuropsychiatric disability are employable. In fact, most of them will make excellent workers in essential war jobs. But they needed consideration on the part of employers and care in placement.
As a rule, these men feel badly at being out of the Army. They don’t want to go back into combat – they have had a little more of that than their nervous systems could tolerate. But neither do they want to be left out of things. They are eager to do whatever they can to hasten victory.
Some will not want to take a job right away. They want a little time to get reacquainted with their families, to hunt up old friends, to take a look at the old familiar places. If they feel this way, they shouldn’t be rushed into a job. Let them take it easy a while.
It is well for the employer to remember that the type of person who cracks up in military life is nearly always an overconscientious sort of person. The “goldbricker” manages to escape strain; it is the man who won’t shirk and who faces the music who is the one to break. When such a man wants a day or an hour off, you can be sure he really needs it.
Advice from psychiatrists
Here is some advice for employers, gathered from psychiatrists who have been caring for these men:
Don’t heap lots of responsibility on them. Work it in gradually as they grow more used to civilian life and feel stronger. Remember that it may take a year or two before the discharged soldier has recovered completely from what he has gone through.
If the man has come away from the Army oversensitive to noise, be careful not to employ him where he will be exposed to sudden, crashing noise. The hum of machinery may not bother him much, but clanging steel, the noise of riveting, sudden loud bells or whistles may be unbearable.
*Lonely jobs taboo
Don’t give him a job as night watchman in the mistaken but well-meaning notion that it will be light work for him. Loneliness and time for thought are just the things these men do not need. Give him a job where he will be active and pleasantly occupied every minute.
Most of these men do poorly on sedentary work. After an active life in the Army, don’t expect them to sit still at a desk all day long. If you give a man a desk job, plan frequent breaks that will give him a little leg-stretching exercise. Hard work out-of-doors such as farm work is the best possible sort for most of them. It gives them little time to think during the day and makes it easier for them to sleep at night.
Consult his work record
The worst possible type of work for the soldier discharged for neuropsychiatric reasons is that which entails long dull periods of slack work punctuated by peaks of exciting bustle and rush. This, after all, is what he could not stand up under in the Army. Waiting gives time for thinking and brooding. Thinking and brooding lead to depression and the blues. Then the brief spurt of rush work puts the man under acute strain for which he is not fit.
In deciding how the discharged soldier would fit into a particular business or manufacturing organization, the employer should be guided more by the man’s work record before he went into the Army than by any account of his illness or experience in service. If he has a record of failures, tardiness, absenteeism, illness, and temperamental differences with employers and fellow employees, the chances are not good that he will make a model employee now. But if his work records shows he was a steady, reliable worker before the war, you can count on him to be an asset to your company now, once the training and adjustment period is past.
NEXT: Family can help soldier back to health.