ABSTRACT
In the preceding six chapters the pressures facing soldiers have been described. The battlefield with all its horrors and deprivations cannot be compared with any other situation in life. The soldier is driven to the limits of his physical and psychological endurance. There are a number of factors affecting men in civilian life which recur on the battlefield, often in an extreme form. These are general deprivations or over-stimulations, such as too much information or too little, too much activity or idleness, too much sex or none at all, too many people or total isolation, too much responsibility or none. The biorhythms are ignored, self-esteem is damaged, isolation is nagging. But there are other factors which affect only particular individuals, such as the specific terror of illness or pain, a fear of snakes or a sensitivity to unpleasant smells. In addition to these factors which affect everyone in personal and varying ways, there are a number of further dominant factors which come into being during active combat. Again, these affect the individual to differing degrees, but owing to their intensity they do not compare with anything in civilian life. The most important of these factors are illustrated diagrammatically.
