For a brief time four married couples lived in a farmhouse on the grounds of the hospital.  However, a flurry of criticism in local newspapers caused hospital administrators to order the men to move back into the dormitories and restricted them to “brief visits” with their wives at the farmhouse in public quarters.  Frances Clayton recalled “Well, we abided [by the rules], believe me, and as a result I don’t think there were any babies made at that time” (Goossen p. 58).

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) took exception to any privileges afforded to COs.  In fact, the New Jersey branch of VFW passed a resolution condemning “colonization” of the CPS unit at Veterans Administration Hospital in Lyons. 

Selective Service, in response to complaints about assignees working off hours, issued a directive requiring superintendents to give permission to assignees for off-site work in their off-duty hours.  At Lyons, the acting hospital director Homer Rogers took the directive seriously and specified that nineteen COs were approved to work from six to twenty hours per week in fields he specified . . .as long as employment would not interfere with their hospital duties.  

After the unit had been established for a time, camp administrators representing church committees recruited for additional men at the Veterans Hospital.  One such brochure, 25 Men Needed at Lyons, candidly described the unit living and working conditions. 

The hospital administration has now decided to house all men in the attendants’ building, four men to a room, using double deckers.  Selective Service has approved this.  There has been considerable objection on the part of the men, but the majority are willing to accept the crowded conditions.  The building is modern, fireproof and newly renovated, and despite the inconvenience should result in great unity of the group. (Taylor p. 177)

One of the men, reflecting on his experience at Lyons in a 1988 survey, recalled that one of the unit COs

. . .was so revolted by the atrocities that constantly occurred on the wards that without telling anyone exactly what he was up to [he] began compiling detailed descriptions of brutality instigated by regular attendants.  In addition to those incidents . . . he collected additional accounts of abuse from after hours’ conversations and mealtime chit-chats.  Without their knowing it, everybody in the institution was providing grist for the mill . . . into a several-hundred page document.  One day, he suddenly packed his duffle bag and left Lyons . . . informed the authorities that he was refusing to participate further in his assignment, thereby earning for himself a prison sentence, but not before presenting the authorities and the press with copies of his documented abuses at Lyons.  (in Sareyan p. 247) 

A federal investigator did appear at the hospital to take sworn depositions from everyone named in the document, heightening tensions between unit men and regular attendants.

In spite of the tensions created, hospital leaders deeply appreciated the COs’ work, noted in a hospital manager’s letter to Colonel Lewis F. Kosch of Selective Service.  “The unit has performed a most valuable function to this Hospital and undoubtedly, has saved many veterans’ lives . . . .“ (Eisan p 234)

In the summer of 1945 the men conducted a relief drive raising $178 to buy heifers for the Church of the Brethren Heifers-for-Relief program.  In December of the same year, the men raised $276 to purchase dried milk for European relief. 

Beginning in January 1944, the men produced Bridge, a paper which continued for part of the year.  From March 1945 through July 1946, the men published a unit newspaper called This Week.