People tend to think of military science as strategy and weapons — fighting, bombing, advancing.... I'm interested in the parts no one makes movies about — not the killing but the keeping alive.
Mary Roach, Grunt
As a young girl Roach must have read one of those books with titles like Science Is Fun and believed every word of it, for all her books, with titles like Spook and Bonk, take science seriously, but not all that seriously. This time her subject is military science, not better weapons but better ways of protecting American soldiers or, failing that, helping them recover from their wounds.
She writes about the science of camouflage, noting that the Navy uses a blue camouflage that looks like water. She quotes one anonymous officer as wryly observing, "That's so no can see you if you fall overboard."
She notes that soldiers can now wear underwear popularly termed Blast Boxers that, while hardly bombproof, can guard against contamination of wounds in that area from fungi and bacteria.
Elsewhere she comments that the fittest soldiers are often those most likely to suffer from heatstroke, simply because they are the ones most likely to push themselves hardest in hot climates.
She writes too about ear protection in the extreme noise of war, genital transplants and medical maggots. Even in peacetime, she notes, sailors aboard nuclear submarines are kept so busy that there is little time for sleep. Thus a submarine might leave port with a thousand pounds of coffee aboard to keep everyone awake. She also observes that the most dangerous part of a submarine voyage is coming to the surface, since it can be extremely difficult even with today's technology to know what might be directly above.
Like Roach, one does not need to have any interest in battles, weapons or military strategy to find all this fascinating — and despite the serious subject matter, often very, very funny.
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