General Patton slapped a man for crying. I wonder what he would have done to this fruitcake if he was alive today?
We need generals like Patton again
There were two incidents on Sicily of Patton slapping soldiers who were experiencing what today we’d call PTSD but who were physically uninjured.
The first one eventually turned out to be infected with malaria. The second one’s nerves were shot. Patton pulled a pistol on him.
My dad was there in Patton’s army on Sicily, a Captain in an AAA battalion. The Army tried assigning a couple of shell-shocked soldiers to that unit to get them off of the front line. It didn’t work. One of them would never sleep and he’d begin pacing non-stop whenever the big guns were firing. The second one was catatonic. He’d go wherever he was led but he would never move his body on his own. Like a gumby doll. Probably undiagnosed schizophrenia. After a few weeks both were sent back to the States.