Participation in war can create dramatic conditions and experiences for the mental health and well-being of military personnel. Throughout the 20th century, U.S. military psychiatrists attempted to address the problematic mental consequences of war while helping to achieve the military goal of preserving the number of people available for work and decreasing the debilitating impact of the syndromes. psychiatric disorders by implementing screening programs to identify factors that may predispose individuals to mental disorders, provide early intervention strategies for war-related challenging syndromes, and treat long-term psychiatric disabilities after deployment. Screening results have turned out to be disappointing, the effects of front-line treatment have become unclear, and the results of treatment for post-war chronic syndromes are conflicting. After the Persian Gulf War, a number of military physicians made innovative proposals for a population-based approach anchored in primary care rather than specialty care. This approach seems to be the most promising for the future. In the story “Things They Carried” by Tim O'brien, he talks about the multiple burdens that soldiers carried individually. They carried with them the emotions of fear that was yet to come, their families that may have been left behind. It also refers to the literal physical loads they carry as soldiers. Although physical burdens affect soldiers, the most influential ones are their emotional problems. The "burden" depicted in the story is the soldiers' many burdens, related to fear, responsibility, vulnerability, and their reputation. These burdens like fear will only weaken someone on the battlefield causing them to fall victim to enemies and possibly... middle of paper......length and erasing the stress that would have prevented soldiers from clearly thinking otherwise. Psychiatric improvements led to proposed screening processes: “Salmon advised the U.S. military to screen recruits and exclude “insane, feeble-minded, psychopathic, and neuropathic individuals.” (2) These individuals with conditions such as schizophrenia and mental retardation were seen to limit the soldiers' ability to provide adequate service. Therefore, preventing psychiatric problems during the war became an important tool for success. By excluding potential soldiers who might have had mental problems, psychiatrists were believed to have contributed heavily to the war effort. The psychiatrist focused on selection because he believed that screening volunteers and enlisted men would “eliminate soldiers who would be predisposed to nervous breakdown”..