Heat Exposure Killing Members of US Military
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US Army Sgt. Sylvester Cline didn’t have to die. The 32-year-old Iraq veteran was training at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas in June 2016 under grueling heat when he fell ill and was rushed to a nearby hospital—where heat exposure took his life.
Sadly, Sgt. Clilne isn’t the military’s only heat-related casualty in recent years. Since 2008, at least 17 service members have died of heat exposure while training at US bases, and cases of heat exhaustion or heatstroke among active-duty troops rose from 1,766 in 2008 to 2,792 in 2018, per military data.
The Pentagon, however, is still wrestling with a basic problem: how to develop a heat-prevention strategy and educate officers about it while preparing troops to fight in hot places like North Africa and the Middle East.
Then there’s climate change, an ongoing inevitability:
“No one is going to talk about climate change because of the political aspect and who is in the White House…”
…says a military official who chose to stay anonymous. But Maj. Meghan, a Fort Benning doctor who calls climate change “an obvious statement of fact,” helped create an Army “heat center” for medics and wrote a white paper about the growing threat.
Defense officials claim they’re also creating new gear and technology to keep troops cool. In Cline’s case, two officers were punished—unfairly, they say—while Cline’s mother, Shirley, is still trying to control her anger.
“They know it’s going to get hot; they know it. So when they know it, what are they doing about it?”
Remarkably, the Trump White House continues to deny the climate is changing, and continues to close the offices of science, those selected by prior administrations, to study, and predict climate change.
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I entered Parris Island on July 31, 1961. In the swampy area of Beaufort, SC. From then until mid October we considered it fortunate if the temperature got down to 85. The humidity saturated the air to the point that standing in formation was similar to doing jumping jacks in a steam room. They gave us shiny little helmet liners and to wear and at least three or four big, pink salt tablets to get through the day. On days they felt it was too hot to exercise they raised a heat alert flag. As I remember it it was rarely run up the flag poll. Something about the flagman collapsing before he got the flag raised. I also remember my Senior Drill Instructor moaning some thing similar to what Jess said. In order to stop training it should be so hot that the bullets would need to be melting before the hit anything. Didn’t happen too often.
The majority of US military members love Trump, and that includes the officers. As a result, nothing substantive will be done about service members training in blistering heat. I remember when I was in basic training, right at the end of the Civil War, we weren’t allowed to train hard, such as running, when the temperature was over 85F. That was a long time ago, but now, since climate change has become a political football there are no such prohibitions because they might appear as if the military was embracing the science.
Civil war huh. did not know you were that old but you look good anyhoo. So will all the wars we fight, now be fought in like Norway and Sweden where it is a little colder. Come on, hydrate take rest breaks what military person will get a break like that during an actual war? Disclaimer here, I have never gone through any training to be in any branch of the military so I don’t know what should and should not be done I just know there is hard training involved from watching movies and stuff, so you have to work around that don’t you? Get your flame on if you must.
Yup Civil War, but thanks for the compliment :-). You make a point about the military.