Stouffer, Research Scientists, Study G.I. Fears, Emotions

Now it's official.

Draftees strongly resented officer privileges, a band of research scientists has revealed. The group, which includes S. A. Stouffer, professor of Sociology, has just published "The American Soldier," an analysis of G.I's wartime gripes.

Army adjustment and training was handicapped, the group concludes, by the fact that most selectees were better educated than their superiors. Most resentment was not against individual officers the researchers said, but against the Army for encouraging the system.

But the physical discomforts of the front shoved most of this attitude to the background, the report goes on. In fact, the mud and K-rations made a deeper impression than the constant threat to life and limb.

Another, all-pervading, source of strain was the impersonality of combat, strengthened by such measures of replacing losses by individuals rather than units. The G.I.s resented being "treated as numbers."

Why Do Soldiers Fight?

The survey also attempted to discover why the G.I. went on fighting in spite of these difficulties. Only five percent fought for "idealistic" reasons, the scientists found, and only two percent for "vindictiveness." Nearly 60 percent of the men questioned were kept going by a desire to get the war over and done with.

Next motive in importance was the desire to help the other men, and ten percent were sustained by thoughts of home and loved ones. Nine percent were held up by a feeling of duty and self respect.

"The American Soldier" was published by the Princeton University Press. Besides Stouffer, Edward A Suchman, Leland C. Devinney, Shirley A. Star, and Robin M. Williams, Jr. worked on the report for the Army. The work is in two big volumes.