Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

Acknowledgments

This book began with an email from a reader: Brad Harper, a retired Army pathologist. In the course of our correspondence, I mentioned I’d been toying with the idea of a book on military science but had assumed that access would trip me up. Should I try it anyway? Yes, insisted Harper. He brought me to the military morgue in Dover and introduced me to colleagues. He took me to USUHS to see his friend Sharon Holland, who has contacts all over the military medical world. When I allowed that one of the things I wished to write about was genital trauma, Holland did not flinch. She picked up the phone and called James Jezior at Walter Reed. Hey, Jim, might you have a surgery this writer could observe? Yes, said Jezior. Though he’d need to ask the patient. And surely here would be my first no: Hey, Captain White, could some strange writer lady come out and watch your operation? But White, too, said yes.

And so it went. Over and over, when the easy answer, the sane answer, was no, people said yes.

Hey, Jerry Lamb, ridiculously busy technical director at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory, could you find someone to approve my spending a few days at sea on a Trident submarine? Though it’ll take fourteen months and two-hundred-some emails to make it happen? Yes, said Lamb.

And might that submarine be yours, Chris Bohner and Nathan Murray of the USS Tennessee? Though I’ll be traipsing through the missile silos with no security clearance? Yes, they said. Bring your notebook and your dingbat questions. Kick Kedrowski out of his rack. Tie up the head every morning.

Hello, Mark Riddle, could I follow you to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, even though it means you’ll have to escort me all day every day for an entire week? And then later will you spend your holidays reviewing my manuscript?

Hey, Randy Coates, and hey, Rick Redett, I hear you’re doing some cadaver trials. Could I join you?

Hey, Kit Lavell, hey, Eric Fallon, could you work me into combat simulations where I don’t belong?

Again and again, I expected to hear no, yet yes was what I got. These fine people put their reputations on the line. They spent time they could not spare. They spoke openly on issues more comfortably left alone. For all of this—to all of you—I am deeply, humbly, gobsmackedly grateful.

I have no background in medicine or the military, and this fact made me an exasperating, time-sucking presence in people’s days. Certain individuals must be thanked for the hours spent explaining their work and, in some cases, the most basic elements of the science: Rob Dean, Christine DesLauriers, Molly Williams, Benjamin Potter, and Stacy and Mark Fidler at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; Doug Brungart, Ben Sheffield, George Peck, Dan Szumlas, and Pete Weina at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; Natalie Pomerantz, Sam Cheuvront, Peggy Auerbach, Rick Stevenson, and Annette LaFleur at US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center; Alan Hough and Eric Nabors at the US Navy Submarine School; Kate Couturier, Ray Woolrich, and Shawn Soutiere at Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory; Dianna Purvis, Patty Deuster, and Dale Smith at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Mark Roman at Aberdeen Proving Ground; Ken Tarcza, Jason Tice, and Patti Rippa of the Warrior Injury Assessment Manikin project; Nicole Brockhoff in the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation; Aaron Hall and Dave Regis at the Naval Medical Research Center; Theodore Harcke and Edward Mazuchowski at the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System; John Clark of the Royal Navy, and Michael White. I came to you all as an ignoramus and an outsider, and you treated me as neither.

Outside the military, I made a pest of myself, most notably, with David Armstrong, Charlie Beadling, Greg Belenky, John Bolte, Robert Cantrell, Joe Conlon, Damon Cooney, Pam Dalton, Jeff Dyche, Jerry Hogsette, Andrew Karam, Malcolm Kelley, Darren Malinoski, Chris Maute, Ekaterina Pesheva, Bruce Siddle, Terry Sunday, and Ronn Wade. I am grateful for the patience and unflagging good humor accorded to me by all.

The stereotype of the military spokesperson—the obfuscating spin-doctor who prefers to pass the buck—was nowhere in evidence during the writing of this book. The public affairs people I contacted were accommodating and no-bull. A few stand out for the extreme diligence and tolerance they applied to my off-the-grid inquiries: David Accetta at US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center; Seamus Nelson at US Navy Camp Lemonnier; Dora Lockwood at the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery; Doris Ryan of the Naval Medical Research Center; Paul Stone at the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System; Joyce Conant at US Army Research Laboratory; Joe Ferrare at US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command; and Jenn Elzea and Sue Gough at the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Vast troves of military images and archival material are available to those who know where and how to look. I knew neither. I am beholden to Andre Sobocinski, able historian at the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, for helping me navigate the National Archives and Records Administration and cheerfully photocopying entire folders for me. Likewise, I owe an outsized debt of thanks to Stephanie Romeo for chasing down the images that open each chapter. Her generous nature and zeal for the task led her to spend far more time than she had any good reason to spend.

Yet again, I have benefited from the unerring instincts of some extraordinary people in the publishing world. I am so very lucky to have Jill Bialosky as an editor and friend. Erin Lovett and Louise Brockett, Bill Rusin, Jeannie Luciano, Drake McFeely, Ingsu Liu, Steve Colca, Laura Goldin, and Maria Rogers at W. W. Norton make my job a joy and my books the best they can be. Jay Mandel’s support is the bass line that runs through my career, and Janet Byrne is the best copy editor imaginable.

No matter how well things fall into place and how smoothly the writing goes, a book will send you to the couch in occasional fits of doubt and self-pity. Everlasting love and gratitude to my husband, Ed Rachles, the man who gets me off the couch.