Reducing the Load Our Soldiers Bear

Introduction

Throughout the history of man wars have been fought everywhere across the world, and

due to Americas foreign policy of the past and present we have been involved in many of these

conflicts. Through all of these years of conflict the United States (U.S.) military has constantly

been modifying and improving for better performance on the battlefield. One particular aspect of

the U.S. military that has drastically changed over the centuries of conflict is the amount of gear

that the U.S. servicemen carry in the field, infantry men especially. Although most of the gear

being carried is primarily designed to help keep troops safe the gear adds an outstanding amount

of weight to the soldier. It has been reported that this overload placed on soldiers has cost lives in

many cases and also causes health risks later in life. This situation is by no means a new

problem, in fact soldiers have been dealing with the problem of being overloaded for centuries

basically since the beginning of warfare. The Soldiers Load AND The Mobility of a Nation

affirms this and gives accounts of problems the United States Marine Corps had with

overloading in World War II stating with every member of a staff trying hard to think of every

possible contingency, and no one above the staff enforcing a rigid weight limit to protect the

soldiers back, loads frequently became unsupportable (Colonel S. L. A. Marshall, 30-31).

This problem of overloading soldiers, of all branches, was carried into the Vietnam War where

U.S. infantrymen were overloaded while trying to fight an unconventional war in thick terrain

similar to that of the Pacific terrain seen in World War II. A concise and effective solution was

never devised after the Vietnam War either and as a result the problem has carried into the

modern day era of American war fighting. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects

this massive amount of gear has on the overall health and combat effectiveness of the modern

American infantrymen. This paper will compare the amount of gear carried now to the amount of

gear that was being carried in past conflicts. The findings will show how drastically combat

effectiveness is decreased today because of the gear that soldiers carry into combat situation. It

will also investigate the solutions to negate the issue of decreased combat effectiveness that have

been proposed by military personnel boards and former servicemen to see if they are actually

being followed and enforced, as well as explain how well these solutions have worked. The

paper will also demonstrate modern health concerns experienced by U.S. infantrymen due to the

toll that the gear takes on their bodies; the health concerns will include those that arise during

service and those that may not immediately affect the body but will in time. Finally this paper

will combine the results of how the gear being carried decreases combat effectiveness and how

this gear affects the soldiers body to propose solutions to this issue that are more fitting for the

current conflicts that the U.S. is involved in and for the current technology available.

Interview Data

This passage will elaborate upon the interviews conducted, as well as evaluate the data

collected. For this interview a few prior service members were chosen who had an infantry

background but were different ranks and from different branches of the service.

SELECTED GROUP

The first individual to be interviewed was Earl J. Catagnus Jr., a former United States

Marine Staff Sergeant and assistant professor of history at Valley Forge Military College. Staff

Sergeant Catagnus had primary MOS 0311 Infantry Rifle Rifleman and other non-primary

MOSs including MOS 8541 Scout Sniper, MOS 8551 Marine Martial Arts Instructor, and MOS

8531 Marksmanship Instructor. Staff Sergeant Catagnus spent 8 years in the United States

Marine Corp, with almost 6 of those years being active duty. He was deployed to Iraq and was

involved in the assault on Fallujah.

The second individual interviewed was William Gallagher, a retired United States Army

infantry officer and now the dean of Valley Forge Military College. Dean Gallagher served 28

years of commissioned service in the Army and retired with the rank of Colonel.

INSTRUMENT

For the interviews eleven questions regarding personal information and personal

experiences were given orally and required a short answer. The eleven questions started by

obtaining basic information of the individuals service and their jobs while in the service. The

remaining questions concentrated on the amount of weight the individual carried in the service,

what training they did to prepare their bodies, problems that their equipment presented in

combat, how they overcame these problems, any health issues they attribute to their gear, and

how they think the issue of over loading soldiers can be resolved.

The following are the interview questions asked during the interviewing session:

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How long were you in the service? What was your MOS?

2. During your time in the service how often did you train while carrying a large amount of

gear? In what ways did this training help you? Could you already see possible problems

that your gear would cause during your deployment(s)?

3. On average about how much did your gear weigh in total?

4. Where did most of this weight come from, was there a particular gear item?

5. Did you ever feel that some things you were carrying were unnecessary?

6. Have you suffered any health problems that have been accredited to the amount of gear

you carried?

7. During your deployment(s) did the gear you carried hinder you on operations of any

kind?

8. If you were in any combat situations did your gear hinder you in anyway?

9. Did you hear of anyone else having problems in combat because of their gear? If so, what

kind of problems did they have?

10. Did you or your unit do anything to overcome the problems that your gear presented for

your body, on missions, or during combat?

11. How do you feel that the load on soldiers could be reduced to decrease health problems

and increase effectiveness during combat?

ANALYSIS

The analysis for this data will also be combined with data found from other

sources to create an overall analysis of all the information. The analysis will be broken into

sections including the weight carried, the training done to prepare the body, issues that gear

presented during combat, health concerns associated with the gear, and current solutions being

employed.

Weight Carried

One important thing to keep in mind when addressing how much weight is carried by a

soldier is that there are different ways to get to an area and different scenarios call for different

loads. For example, there is forced marching which is basically moving a unit to a battle. The

weight that soldiers carry during a forced march is largely sustainment weight, what they need to

operate consecutively for a few days, and the sustainment weight is normally shed at a base or

checkpoint before going into a battle. When soldiers go into a battle they carry a combat load

which does not include the sustainment weight and is thus about 10-30 pounds lighter

(Catagnus). It is also important to realize that as both Staff Sergeant Catagnus and Colonel

Gallagher mentioned, loads need to be tailored according to the climate and terrain that will be

operated in as well as the overall objective of the mission. For this section we will address the

average weight carried by infantry soldiers as an overall average instead of breaking it into

averages for forced march load, combat load, mission objective and many other variables to limit

the complexity of the numbers. The average weight carried by Army infantry men today is

roughly 70-100 (Soldiers Load and Combat Readiness), and the average weight carried by

Marine infantry men ranges about the same (Catagnus). When this number is compared to the

two previously mentioned wars, World War II and the Vietnam War, we see that the number

hasnt changed much over the last 7 decades. In World War II there were accounts of men of D-

Day carrying about 70 pounds worth of gear (The Weight of War). In Vietnam the average

infantrymans load was 75 pounds and above (What did Vietnam Soldiers Carry).

In most scenarios today the weight is toward the higher end of the approximation value.

Most of this weight, as Staff Sergeant Catagnus stated, comes from Water and ammunition. In

combat it was water. (Catagnus).

Training to Prepare the Body

In order to train the soldiers bodies for the loads that will be placed on them, soldiers are

trained to march long distances with excessive amounts of gear. They also train by doing ruck

runs which consists of a 3 to 8 mile run while carrying a ruck that weighs approximately 30-60

pounds. According to Staff Sergeant Catagnus the training is rather extensive and strenuous to

prepare soldiers for the extreme rigors of combat. He said, Training was actually tougher than

combat by training harder than combat required this accustomed their bodies to the load and

strains of combat and he furthered added, You get used to it[the weight] and you dont really

feel it during combat (Catagnus).

Gear Issues in Combat

Since soldiers are required to carry so much gear into combat situations there are

problems with mobility as well as performance of other important tasks.

Staff Sergeant Catagnus stated, Casualty extraction was a problem. He noticed it was

very difficult to remove wounded in combat because they weighed a couple hundred pounds and

had roughly another one hundred pounds of gear on. He also said, Its ridiculous, the amount of

weight that you carry. Especially when youre up against an enemy with an AK and one

magazineThe weapon systems [the American weapon systems] are heavy, the ammunition is

heavy. That doesnt mean we were ineffective, it just meant that we fought differently. Going

over walls was difficult. You couldnt do the things that they did, but then again you didnt want

to. He did say that gear presented these various problems but he concluded, The gear is

restrictive but at the same time its lifesaving, in that particular environment.(Catagnus)

Health Problems

Health problems associated with soldiers carrying too much gear include degenerative

arthritis and bone spurs. The same article that spoke about these health problems further

elaborated Nearly one-third of all medical evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004

through 2007 resulted from musculoskeletal, connective-tissue or spinal injuries. (Weight Of

War: Soldiers' Heavy Gear Packs On Pain). Staff Sergeant Catagnus explained that he personally

suffered bodily injuries from his gear, I blew out my knee. I had a torn ACL three days before I

went to Iraq.. I hid it from everyone except my Corpsmen (medic). I got ACL reconstruction

and a meniscal repair. The knee still slips, I still fall. I had to get back surgery. Staff Sergeant

Catagnus also contributed most of the bodily injuries troops suffer after leaving the service to the

body not being in the shape it was before. He elaborated by stating, Youre conditioned and

trained, after you leave that environment is when you have the problems with your body

(Catagnus).

Current Solutions

As pointed out in the analysis portion that compared the weight soldiers carried now to

the weight carried in the past the number today is about the same, in most cases more, than what

soldiers have carried in the past. This issue has been recognized by the U.S. military branches, as

a result solutions have been devised and implemented, yet the problem of overloading soldiers

remains.

One solution is FM 7-8, Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad, 22 April 1992, Chapter 5

Annex 1, which is a guideline to packing for missions. In short it recommends that the soldiers

combat load should be less than 60 pounds (Soldiers Load and Combat Readiness). It was seen

that this solution didnt help soldiers because they still suffered from a loss of mobility due to

their load during combat situations. In 2001 the Army Science Board conducted a study and

recommended that the soldiers total load should ideally be reduced to 50 pounds. This number

was not achieved but the boards recommendation did help in the push for creating lighter gear to

reduce the load on combat troops (Weight of War: Military Struggles to Lighten Soldiers Load).

Another strategy implemented today to ensure that soldiers are not over packing is the

conducting of pre-combat inspections in which leaders check their subordinates gear to be sure

that it fits the mission. However, most leaders have become risk averse, which means they

want to cover ever risk they can, therefore they cause their subordinates to over pack (Armor or

Agility: Is Todays Infantry Load Slowing Down our Soldiers Load).

In some cases soldiers have taken it upon themselves to devise solutions to reduce the

amount of weight that they carry. Staff Sergeant Catagnus admitted, I didnt carry any water, a

lot of us didnt. Resupply was that night so it didnt really matter. We had trained our bodies to

do that. After saying this he stated that he and his fellow Marines werent supposed to do that

but it reduced their loads considerable. He also said that he did not wear certain attachments to

his flak, like the groin protector and neck protector, which also helped reduced his overall load

(Catagnus).

Conclusion

Using the information from the data collected in this paper it can be concluded that there are two

viable solutions to reduce the amount of weight that U.S. infantrymen carry.

The first option is to rely on technology. As we know technology today is way beyond

where it was at the time of World War II and we can use this to our advantage when it comes to

reducing loads on the soldier. There are already plans for exosuits to be out for use in 2016.

These suits are supposed to fit under soldiers battle uniforms and help reduce the amount of

external load weight that is actually placed on the soldier. Another technological advancement

possibility is robotic mules which have been rumored to be extremely agile, carry upwards of

400 pounds, and provide 500 watts of power that can be used to charge devices (Weight of War).

Colonel Gallagher and Staff Sergeant Catagnus agree with this idea that advancements in

technology are the best way to combat the problem of overloading soldiers. There are others who

feel that technology has been part of the reason that soldiers are carrying too much weight. Load

Carriage Capacity of the Dismounted Combatant - A Commander's Guide explains that the

weight of modern technology and the weight of batteries used for any of this equipment is adding

more to the amount of gear that soldiers carry instead of reducing it. Also, Rob Saucier, states

that soldiers have to carry spare batteries for everything which adds to the soldiers load

(Armor or Agility: Is Todays Infantry Load Slowing Down our Soldiers). Colonel Gallagher,

believes this problem will be solved by advancements in technology and modifications, much

like how night vision was modified to be more user friendly over the years. Solutions are already

being constructed to fix the battery problem, scientists are developing backpacks with solar

panels to be used by soldiers in combat. These solar panels will be used to charge any batteries

that the soldiers carry and it will have a universal adapter for automatically adapting to devices

like radios, GPS, and laptop computers (The Weight of War). This means that the weight

problem brought on by batteries that Mr. Saucier spoke of will be greatly reduced.

The second solution is to take a better look at the guidelines that are already in place.

Staff Sergeant Catagnus and Colonel Gallagher pointed out that soldiers need skilled leaders to

help prevent overloading. Colonel Gallagher attributed a lot of the problem that soldiers have

with overloading to poor inspections by leaders and poor enforcement of packing lists. He

elaborated on this saying that leaders needed to be educated and know the guidelines and they

need to have the knowledge to tailor the load to mission. It is also important that subordinates

understand the dangers of overloading themselves and it is important that they have leaders like

those mentioned above (Gallagher).

Works Cited

1) "Armor or Agility: Is Today's Infantry Load Slowing Down Our Soldiers? - US Patriot

Tactical Blog." US Patriot Tactical Blog. N.p., 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

2) Bernton, Hal, David Turim, and Gene Balk. "Weight of War: Military Struggles to

Lighten Soldiers Load." Seattletimes.com. The Seattle Times, 13 Feb. 2011. Web. 22

Mar. 2015.

3) Catagnus, Earl J., Jr. Personal interview. 1 Apr. 2015.

4) Drain, J., R. Orr, R. Attwells, and D. Billing. Load Carriage Capacity of the Dismounted

Combatant - A Commander's Guide (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

.

5) Gallagher, William J. Personal interview. 7 Apr. 2015.

6) HSU, JEREMY. "The Weight of War." Popular Science 285.5 (2014): 60. MasterFILE

Premier. Web. 12 Mar. 2015

7) Marshall, S. L. A. The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation. Quantico, VA:

Marine Corps Association, 1980. Print.

8) "Military." Soldier's Load and Combat Readiness. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.

9) "Weight Of War: Soldiers' Heavy Gear Packs On Pain." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 21 Mar.

2015.

10) "What Did Vietnam Soldiers Carry?" Charlie Company Vietnam 19661972. N.p., 19 Jan.

2013. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. .