Overall, 25% of casualties were caused by war trauma, and this rate was even higher– 50%– for soldiers engaged in long, intense fighting (
PBS, 2003). In fact, so many soldiers were affected that psychiatrists were confronted with the reality that psychological weakness had little to do with subsequent distress in combat. Thus, terminology changed from “combat neurosis” to “combat exhaustion,” or “battle fatigue” (
Bentley, 2005). Reflecting the consensus that all soldiers were vulnerable to battle fatigue due to their environments, the U.S. Army adopted the official slogan, “Every man has his breaking point” (
Magee, 2006).
In 1947, the U.S. Army released a documentary, entitled
Shades of Gray, about the causes and treatment of mental illness during WWII. This documentary, shown in the following eight YouTube clips, indicates the consensus at that time that no one is immune to mental illness, and that environmental factors play a large role in the development of psychological problems. Combat exhaustion was thought to encompass such symptoms as hypervigilence, paranoia, depression, loss of memory, and conversion.