Eisendorfer and Lewis cite the case histories of two soldiers whose conduct was exemplary while they were exposed to the dangers of actual combat, but who upon return to the safe environment of home promptly developed a neurosis. Psychiatric study disclosed that the return home threatened a reactivation of early conflicts from which life in the army had afforded an escape. The war was for them a means by which they avoided their neurotic anxieties. It afforded them an outlet for their sado-masochistic tensions. Return to their former family relationships confronted these men with their unresolved conflicts, with resultant reactivated anxiety. Neurotic breakdown may therefore be expected in certain veterans whose consistently successful career in the army will have furnished no evidence on which to anticipate such a sequel.