Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Over the past year or so, many great warriors wrote articles about how their unit fought heroically, or how they skinned a particular type of tactical “cat” while operating in Southwest Asia. These articles are quite enlightening and portray the Armor Force to be a potent thunderbolt on the battlefield. This, however, is not that type of article. My intent is to show another side of the desert conflict. There will be no chest thumping about how I thought my unit fought, how my unit actually fought, or how I describe my unit’s fight after a drink or two at the club. This is simply one trooper’s view of how the American fighting man made do as best as he could with the resources he had at hand while he waited, and waited, and waited. If you choose to read this article, you will see descriptions of several “inventions” that I witnessed while serving for five months in SWA. Remember while you rqd, that these items were created out of need, or the desire to make life a little easier in the desert. The inventor often had only simple tools and a vivid imagination to accomplish his task. The Chair I doubt that you could fmd someone who crossed into Iraq who doesn’t wax a little emotional when talking about this simple device. By no means anew product, the chair, nonetheless, merits the number one ranking in this list for its contributions to the fighting man’s dignity in the often undignified pursuit of personal hygiene. By simply taking a folding chair and bartering for some cutting torch time, you could have your own private throne - a ticket to solitude when you need it most. Most units I knew had at least one chair per platoon. I even hemi tales of lroops taking Hummers out of the perimeter to get to a particular vantage point to better enjoy the moment. However, many a private moment was destroyed by the ever curious Bedouin and his camels. The Washing Machine From buckets to Bedouin pans to burials at sand, our soldiers fought to find a better way to do the dread job of laundry. I saw many techniques, but the best, created by a mechanic from scrap parts, was a genuine washing machine. Simple, portable, and capable of washing one week’s worth of a trooper’s laundry in one fell swoop. The machine consisted of a standard 32-gallon trash can. From there, it got a little complex. To start, he used a broken right angle drive to which he brazed a crank handle and a paddle assembly composed of camouflage net paddles. He mounted this on a plywood lid, then attached it to the trash can with some old hinges. Presto! Maytag couldn’t have done any better if it tried. Now all you needed was ARMOR - July-August 7992 17 some water and a strong arm for cranking. As I recall, this machine received maintenance priority par with the tanks until we crossed the berm. The Shower At first, we had these wondrous affairs, a wooden shelter with a water tank on top and three shower heads below. Guaranteed to get you wet, mildly hypothermic, and covered with sand by the end of your shower. No wonder it was so hard to get the troops to go in there! Some improvised by sealing the showers in plastic to keep out the wind, and by putting immersion heaters in the water tanks to get the temperature above the glacial level, but it was all to no avail. No sooner did we figure out how to do it right when we were ordered to move west - never to see our luxury showers again. It was back to the bucket brigade - the infamous “whore bath,” squatting over a bucket while your peers jeered at you. Kind of took the sport out of cleaning those hard to reach areas. Again, it was a mechanic to the rescue. One day I noticed a neat pile of tools outside the tool truck and the sounds of drilling and sawing coming from within. When I investigated, I saw what appeared to be a shower stall inside the tool truck. After a brief conversation covering the use of Army equipment, the mission, and the status of things in general, I came away with the feeling that I had just lost a battle, and the hope that he actually could make it work. The shower consisted of a five-gallon water can modified by adding a hose and shower head to the bottom, and a tire pressure stem to the top. After filling the can with hot water, you simply pressurized the can courtesy of a small compressor in the truck, then regulated the flow of water with a switch on the shower head. The stall was modest and tight, but for the effort of heating five gallons of water, you could enjoy a luxurious hot shower out of the wind with a private place to get dressed. This device did more for the troops’ morale than any number of sundry packs could hope to do. The Generic Map Not all of the devices I saw created revolved around washing, cleaning, or heeding nature’s call. This item, created by my commander, served our company well every time we left the perimeter - be it on a parts run or actual combat operations. It consisted, quite simply, of featureless 1:50,000 scale maps that were covered with acetate and fit into a cardboard “book.” We gathered the blank maps from the hundreds that we received in our initial issue. All you had to do was gather map information such as grid numbers from an actual map, then transfer it to the generic map. Because the majority of the terrain that we operated on was essentially flat with few recognizable features, this generic map system allowed us to navigate rapidly without having to switch map sheets every few hours. Once you applied your graphic control measures, you could easily calculate distances and azimuths for navigation. This simple yet effective system, used by vehicle commanders at all levels, allowed the company to have standarized graphics and overlays, thus simplifying command and control in the desert. Power Supply One of my bigger headaches as company XO was the procurement of batteries. Oftentimes I would scour the desertside looking for small VINSON batteries or the trusty old BA-30 in order to keep our equipment running. Luckily, a closet electrician came forth in the company. This magician, armed only with a soldering gun, a multimeter, and some broken transistor radios proceeded to make long-life power supplies for our equipment by wiring PRC-77 batteries (of which we had plenty) to equip ment such as our LORANS. This freed up batteries for use in PVS-7s and other equipment. It also prevented the troops from taking their precious store-bought batteries out of their radios.to power night vision devices resulting in a great increase in morale. Our electrician also fabricated a vehicular power supply for our GPSs (we received the CENTCOM approved wiring harnesses just before redeployment) which dramatically increased our navigational abilities. During the course of a five-month tour in SWA, I saw many unique solutions to everyday problems originated by soldiers at all levels, from commander to private. I think it reflects well on the inherent strength of our troops to overcome adversity no matter how bleak the outcome looks. Throughout this brief article, I described some, but by no means all, of the inventions created by soldiers that I served with. While I didn’t intend this to be a “Mr. Science” article giving you step-by-step directions, I do hope that it has brought back some memories of young ‘Thomas Edi-sons” that you may have known, or at least given you a little insight into the initiative that American soldiers will take when given the opportunity. Captain Joel C. Dotterer received his RA commission as a Distinguished Military Graduate of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. A graduate of

IMPOC, and AOAC, he has served as a tank, scout, and support platoon leader, and company XO with 3d Squadron, 2d ACR, Amberg, Germany. He is currently assigned to 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. 18 ARMOR - JUly-AUgUSf 1992