Forty percent of a group of 25 military basic trainees discharged
from training for mental health reasons admitted histories of
childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. In a control group of 25
successful trainees, only 1 gave a history of abuse. Consistent with
published studies of childhood abuse in psychiatric patient samples,
women in our discharge group were more likely to report abuse
histories than men. Perpetrators were usually reported as
non-biological male family members of the respective victims. The
authors conclude that adult survivors of childhood abuse appear to be
less able to tolerate the stresses of military basic training, and
discuss the need for identifying and therapeutically assisting these
individuals during their training.