Living in Iowa, I've learned that when you leave your house you wear your sunglasses and carry an umbrella. It's all too common on a typical summer day for multiple rain showers to come and go. 90 degrees and sunny one second, followed quickly by thunderstorms.
Sorry Mississippi, I guess us Iowa boys brought a little wacky weather with us.
Qualifying day at the range, we all get bused down in full battle rattle with our weapons, ready to shoot at various targets and prove our mettle with a rifle. The first thing when we get there is a quick safety brief. The typical 'no one touches their weapon when someone is down range' and 'follow every command issued by the safety NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer In Charge)'. And of course, being in Mississippi in August, a long speech regarding hydration and the heat, urging and ordering soldiers to continually drink water.
It's now 9 o'clock in the morning and the heat index is nearly 100 degrees. We're scuttling for the relieving shelter of shade and praying for cool breezes to pick up. People are on line zeroing their weapons while others are just laying back, thinking cool thoughts. The first short rain comes around 10 o'clock, sending people out to gather their gear and drag it to dry grounds under a tent. It lasts fifteen minutes, and the sun claws it's way through to fry us again.
Suddenly the heat index is over 100 degrees, humidity is racking up with each short burst of rain. The NCOIC's are pausing fire, taking 30 minute breaks from the blazing sun. Shortly after lunch break is when the first heat casualty (Heat Cat) falls. Medics are called, ice sheets are busted out, and IV's are stuck in veins. Medvac time.
They bust the smoke signal and the helo lands, picking up the first victim of the heat.
Certainly not the last. Within the next three hours, five more people go down, the helo lands two more times and the Battalion Commander comes out for a visit. Higher ups don't like having to use a medvac helicopter once in a day, much less three times. Suddenly our platoon leaders are having us down camelbaks of water and eating salt packets out of our MRE's.
Everything calms down, fire resumes. People relax.
And the storms arrive.
Around four o'clock it gets cloudy for good, there is lightning streaking through the sky, rolling thunder shaking our boots and torrential rain begins to fall. We're on the range for six more hours, sopping wet and miserable, now wishing for the sun to come back to dry us off a little.
I'm posting gate guard for the last hour and a half while the last few groups finish night qualifying, and I ask a local active duty soldier if this kind of weather is common.
"No way man. I've never seen a heat category 5 day turn into a storm like this. This is tropical storm weather."
The common sense would say that it was indeed a result of the tropical storm that was floating around in the gulf vicinity. I asked all my NCO's if they'd seen so many medvacs within such a period, so many heat victims. Of course not, they say.
Common sense aside, I get the feeling the Iowa boys of the 832nd brought this scourge of weather down with us. A crash course for the Mississippians on Iowa summers. And extreme example of what we put up with.
Fear not readers, I myself did not succumb to any sort of heat problems. I'm a fan of it, personally. And I know how to treat my body, drink loads of water and eat plenty of hydrating fruit, i.e. melon and bananas.
Nonetheless, debilitating heat such as this can not be under estimated.
Enjoy the weather, wherever you might be.
And keep on keeping on...
