U.S. coalition forces in full combat gear take cover while inspecting the site of car bomb in Mosul.
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY BAGHDAD — Sgt. Frank Merola, a videographer with the Army's 363rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Baghdad, recently took part in a weeklong mission in Arab Jabour, just south of Baghdad. TAKING PRECAUTIONS: Military keeps down severe cases
To avoid the worst of the heat, his platoon left its base at 4:30 each morning, patrolled the town on foot and returned just before noon, he says. By the time they marched back to base, Merola's half-gallon CamelBak water dispenser would be dry, and he'd be sagging under the withering effects of the sun.
"It's like standing in front of a heater with a winter coat on — then someone starts a fire," says Merola, 32. "You feel the sweat going through your boots. You feel your eyes stinging. You feel it."
Carrying 30 to 40 pounds of gear under a blistering, 100-plus-degree sun could easily lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke or worse. But the U.S. military says its troops are successfully avoiding heat-related injuries in Iraq through a regimen of hydration, training and operational adjustments, such as launching raids at dawn or dusk.
"We're really disciplined with this," says Col. Todd Dombroski, battalion surgeon for the Army's 1-12 Infantry Battalion, mostly responsible for guarding the Green Zone in central Baghdad.
Troops take various precautions to minimize the risk.
For example, during Merola's Arab Jabour mission, which was aimed at flushing out insurgents and instilling confidence in area residents, medics gave soldiers small packets with a saline solution to mix with water to replenish the salt the body loses through sweat.
Though they weren't required to, many of the troops drank the packets. It was "like drinking warm salt water," Merola says.
Sometimes, even these precautions aren't enough. Almost every day, someone from the unit needed intravenous fluids before returning to patrol, he says. "There is really no such thing as drinking too much water," says Merola, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "It's life or death."
Ice to water in minutes
Leaders of the Special Troops Battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad make sure their troops freeze several 11/2-quart bottles of water the night before each mission, says Sgt. Adam Brosch, a convoy commander with the battalion. Each Humvee gets a cooler with 15 bottles. Within the first 10 minutes of a three-hour mission, those bottles of ice have usually turned to warm water. And they're empty well before the mission's over, says Brosch, 24, of Irving, Texas.
Unit leaders are trained to look for early signs of heat exhaustion: pallor, dizziness, slurred speech and confusion, Brosch says.
"It's one of the most important parts of our task," he says. "Only takes a few minutes and you could start feeling dizzy. You could lose focus real fast."
Other troops have improvised their own tactics, such as soaking small towels in ice water overnight to place on their necks, says Pfc. David Grosshuesch, 20, of Elkhorn, Wis., a gunner in Brosch's unit. He's in charge of manning his Humvee's .50-caliber machine gun.
Perched atop his vehicle, Grosshuesch often holds his arm out at an angle while on patrol to let air circulate through his uniform. On particularly hot days, the breeze feels like the hot air from a hair dryer. "It gets toasty," he says.
As hot as it is, Iraq would be far worse for U.S. troops if it were more humid, Dombroski says. The evaporation of sweat cools the body. In hot, humid climates, sweat doesn't evaporate as fast as in dry heat. That leads to more stress on the body, he says.
That's why troops deployed to humid climates, such as Haiti or Somalia, may suffer a higher rate of heat-induced medical problems than those in dry desert climates such as Iraq, Dombroski says.
Iraq's dry heat allows sweat to evaporate more easily, but it can be deceiving — and dangerous. If troops don't notice they're sweating, they could rapidly slip into debilitating heat illness, says Robert Carter III, a research physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass. "It's a dry environment. So you don't feel yourself sweating. You sweat in the jungle," he says.
Carter says he and other researchers conducted a study that predicted soldiers should not need more than 14 liters of water a day, or about 3.7 gallons. That's not the case in Iraq. "Many have reported drinking 21 liters a day. Some who are just sitting in a Humvee need 14 liters a day," Carter says.
Added armor, added risk
Dombroski says the military will soon require troops to wear two more protective ceramic plates on their armor vests, for a total of four: one in front, one in back and one on each side. That will produce even more body heat, he says.
"The French will tell you one of the best ways to cook a chicken is in a ceramic bowl," he says.
The military is looking into buying state-of-the-art vests that create a space between body and vest to allow air to circulate. Another option under consideration: a battery- operated version that circulates a cool liquid through the vest. Dombroski says test models may arrive later this year.
Col. Brian Allgood, the top medical officer for U.S. troops in Iraq, says the military has devised a heat illness prevention campaign.
Through a series of e-mails and web-based conferences, medics in Iraq are reminded how to measure the heat index, which combines the effects of heat and humidity, and how to look for signs of heat exhaustion, Allgood says.
The training and vigilance will continue as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq, he says. "This is a harsh climate," Allgood says. "It's always going to be a risk."
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