From the no kidding files: a more efficient miltary would save soldiers' lives
Photo by Soldiers Media Center. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
The US military has brought the civilian world some great acronyms, like SNAFU and FUBAR. The military might need to look into adopting O RLY after coming to the conclusion that, as Green Car Advisor put is, "Army's Dependence on Oil Cost Soldiers Their Lives." The gist of the article - based on a report in Climate Wire (subs req'd) - is that, since fuel convoys in Iraq are so incredibly dangerous for US military personnel, lives could be saved if the military was more fuel efficient and those troops didn't need to truck fuel around the occupied country in the first place. The energy savings discussed in the article include insulating tents and converting waste into energy. While more efficient vehicles are not specifically mentioned, we've seen plenty such stories. Too bad those GEMs didn't work out.
[Source: Green Car Advisor]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ziv 2:52PM (1/30/2009)
Logistics is studied at such a level of expertise in the military that it still shocks me that a substantial portion of the fatalities in Iraq were from truckdrivers bringing fuel, water and food to the troops. The fuel I can almost understand, it is a highly mechanized force and there are no BEV military vehicles to speak of, and range anxiety takes on a whole new meaning if you are in hostile territory.
The idea of losing troops because we don't have effective mobile water treatment facilities, though, is simply tragic. Obviously, it isn't a simple problem to solve, but if the Army could eat food and drink water, safely, procured in Iraq, it would have saved hundreds of lives and allowed the Army to assign more troops to security and fewer to support.
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Harry Callahan 8:11PM (12/22/2008)
I followed your link to Green Car Advisor and noticed that directly below the story you pointed to was a story they wrote on the GEMs not working out for the U.S. army in Germany. And inside that story was a link to another story by them on how the U.S. military ordered a bunch of electric vehicles for use on bases in the US. Seems like you guys are going out of your way to bash this other blog. What gives???
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