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Abstract

As a result of steadily improving psychological and psychiatric activities during wartime, there is a growing professional literature on adjustment problems related to combat reactions in soldiers. A description is given of some specific war conditions and related combat reactions observed during the Yom Kippur war of October 1973 in Israel. Typical reactions of combat fatigue, for instance, superstitions and fatalistic thoughts and certain psychosomatic reactions, should be interpreted as basically adjustive reactions and viewed as vital coping patterns. There are, of course, a number of similarities between stress conditions in the Yom Kippur war and those found for World War I and II and the Korean and Viet Nam wars. However, during the October war Israeli soldiers experienced a very strong identification with and commitment to their army and their country, whereas the attitudinal and motivational structure of battle adjustment in American soldiers in countries like Korea and Viet Nam was probably quite different. In interpreting battle reactions in combat soldiers due weight should be given to variables like ego-involvement and commitment to one's country beyond more general variables, which are related to the unavoidable stress and strain of combat conditions and war.

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Stress Experiences and Combat Fatigue during the Yom Kippur War (1973)

Abstract

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References