Military Psychiatry
By Dr Alfred Bellows
Prologue
By General Schaeffer
I, General Schaffer to pacify my ex-colleague Dr Alfred Bellows agreed to write an introduction to his book "Military Psychiatry" after I retired from the space programme. I was to be frank surprised that this book became so popular though this was not perhaps because of the extraordinary psychiatric reports on Major Nelson and Major Healey. I think myself that it was because the exemplary mental make up of an air force psychiatrist attracted the attention of readers and moved them to sympathy and intrigue. Dr Bellows was a good man, a fine doctor and a successful psychiatrist until Captain Anthony Nelson joined the space programme in September 1965. Captain Nelson, who was later promoted to Major and his best friend Captain Healey who was also promoted to Major, somehow became the fixation of Dr Alfred Bellows.
Dr Bellows was born on 29th October 1917. He had a sister, a year younger than him who wanted to train to be an ordinary medical doctor. Both Alfred and Clare Bellows attended medical school. Dr Bellows graduated on June 6th 1942 and his sister a year later. For five years he was an ordinary doctor but then he felt restless and wanted to do more with his life. He had an enquiring mind and wanted to be more than an ordinary doctor. Clare suggested that he should join the air force. He did and became a flight surgeon for a time. Clare herself after a few years of doctoring married and became an ordinary housewife. She gave birth to a son whom she named Richard. Doctor Bellows was assigned to NASA as a captain. Despite his obvious affection for his sister he was a lonely individual who was apart from others. He was promoted to Major and at that point realized it was the mind that truly fascinated him, not the body. He trained in military psychiatry and qualified as a psychiatrist.
When Colonel Stone was promoted to a General in 1952, he made Dr Bellows a medical and psychiatric officer in the NASA space programme. General Stone, who was a perceptive man, noticed Dr Bellows' isolation and that he was not a fully happy individual despite his professional successes. He took Dr Bellows under his wing, praising his successes, inviting him out for a drink, encouraging him to pay social visits to him and Mrs. Stone and generally looking out for him. Dr Bellows was grateful to his superior for this and responded to his kindness. A close friendship formed between them despite their professional relations to each other. It was when he was spending an evening out with Dr and Mrs. Stone in 1953 that a theatrical, Amanda Marlow caught his attention. She was having an orange juice with a friend and she noticed him as well. Following some persuasion from General Stone, Dr Bellows got to know her and asked her out on a date. She agreed.
A while later, she resigned her job and became engaged to him. For a time they did not tell anyone. Then they married and General Stone was naturally Dr Bellow's best man. In this book, Dr Bellows has recorded his experiences of military psychiatry since 1965 when Captains Nelson and Healey joined the space programme and which though unbelievable have nevertheless been fascinating to read. This book has of course been written with the full permission of all parties concerned.