Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

There’s something seriously wrong with Mary Roach. Conjure up any vile, disgusting, or taboo subject that anyone in her right mind would shun — and you’ll find Mary Roach has written a book about it (or is probably planning to do so). Her books to date have dealt with cadavers, the afterlife, surviving interplanetary flight, the physics and chemistry of sex, and the human digestive (and excretive) tract. And she is not inclined to use circumlocutions. She calls crap crap. I love this woman!Military science under the microscopeNow, in Grunt, her latest book, Roach has turned her attention to military science, specifically the science-based efforts by the U.S. defense establishment to clothe, train, armor, and heal our soldiers, sailors, and airmen and protect them from every manner of wound and loss of function. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable topics such as battlefield hearing loss, shark repellent, bird strikes on airplanes, diarrhea, and penis implantation figure in the story. (The only major topic she avoids is PTSD, because, she writes, “it has had so much [coverage], and so much of it is so very good.”) Roach tells her tale with brutal honesty — and leavens it with an abundance of humor. Some passages are laugh-out-loud funny. Maybe what’s wrong with Mary Roach is that her sense of humor is so much better developed than it is in the rest of us. In any case, I love what she writes.Surprises galoreUnless you are remarkably knowledgeable about the U.S. military, you’re likely to learn a great deal about how it actually works by reading Grunt.*** Consider, for example, the years-long investigation carried out by the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) team of the United States Air Force. You’ll learn why shooting chickens out of a sixty-foot “chicken gun” at 400 miles per hour to test their impact on aircraft in flight was eventually deemed unsuitable. The scientists shifted to turkey vultures. As Roach informs us, “Though implicated in only 1 percent of Air Force birdstrikes, the weighty raptors are, by one accounting, responsible for 40 percent of the damage.” Serious people actually spent years figuring all this out!*** You’ll learn why the Army’s clothing designers crafted custom-designed tops for snipers, with pockets on the sleeves for easy access, a zipper on the side instead of the front, and no buttons, so that when lying on the ground or crawling across it their buttons won’t catch or the zipper make noise that might give away their position. (FYI, “US government button specifications run to twenty-two pages. This fact on its own yields a sense of what it is like to design garments for the Army.”) Can you imagine any army, anywhere else in the world, that would go to such lengths to outfit its troops? “In a place like Afghanistan,” Roach writes, “sweat keeps more people alive than corpsmen do.” The explanation (in Chapter 7) is fascinating.You get the point. Military science can be fun — at least, reading about it can.About the authorMary Roach has written eight books of science journalism. Her work has garnered several awards and been shortlisted for many more. Her books have been bestsellers from the start, beginning with her first effort, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

I have never met a Mary Roach book I haven't enjoyed. She exemplifies the kind of science writing I'd love to see be the norm in high schools and even undergraduate studies. Not just for the irreverent style that follows the perpetual openings to 'go there' into fart jokes and potty mouth, the need to pursue details about diarrhea and underpants. What I love best is the deeper philosophy behind Roach's work, the persistent mystery of the human body and how we constantly need to examine it further to understand its complexities, especially when we require it to perform well amidst a lifestyle that increasingly works against it, whether that lifestyle involves nutritional needs or traveling to Mars and back. And I also love Roach's profound respect for and curiosity about the people who dedicate their lives to this kind of study. As much as her own writing shows her own commitment, she freely confesses to being a voyeur of sorts, who gets to delve into the mire of biology but gets to step away and move on to the next subject. She clearly admires those who persist for years in the topics she only has to write a few pages on.Her latest, clearly, focuses on the efforts behind the military machine. More importantly, the efforts to meet the concerns of warfare and the concerns of the bodies that move that war machine. Whether it be concerns about body armor, genital injuries or sleep cycles on submarines, Roach gets in with the scientists and the soldiers involved to not only divulge the subject itself but spotlight the people involved. What the problem is is as much a focus as Who is working on it. Scientists who mix their metaphors or who can work unfazed by the pounding of bombs nearby. She gets fascinated by the minutiae necessary to this line of work. How to convince a Navy SEAL that anti-diarrheals aren't the coward's way out of a problem? Roach gets deep into the muck of daily soldiering and the problems of BO that come up along the way.This isn't my favorite of her books, as it gets rather episodic under its own banner and doesn't carry the kind of genius narrative arc like her books Stiff and Packing for Mars did, that by learning about the use of cadavers in medical science or the concerns involved in a manned Mars mission we are learning about the human condition itself, but who can expect that kind of genius in every book? Even Dostoevsky had to admit not every book could be a Brothers K. Roach is case and point that the pursuit of science is at its heart another form of the humanities.

This is a difficult topic to even step near with any sensitivity, and to be honest, I was a little wary--most of her other books deal with universal humanity, rather than the small slice of us who volunteer for military service. And it's a tough rail to ride between jingoism and critique, but she manages it well.She's at her best the further away she is from the battlefield and in the socially-awkward schtick she pulls off so well, such as cornering a SF soldier in a chow hall about diarrhea. She creates herself as an endearing dork, and, honestly, I love it, because her curious dorkitude is something her fans relate to, almost personally.The only critique I have of this book is it's too short. There's SO much to be said about sleep, and so many other topics to think and write about (nothing on the airborne?!) that it felt a bit thin, though I'm sure it's not. I rather suspect it's a matter of who would allow her access and for what.If you already like her work, this is another solid addition to your reading list. It might be a good intro to new readers who are interested in the topic (loosely, military science), though I'm not sure that some of the chapters would make it a big seller with families of soldiers and sailors. For me, a veteran, I kept quietly laughing at the examples of military bureaucratic bulls***--so very little of which has changed since I was in!

An excellent book!

My great nephew was in the Marines when I read this book. I'm not sure if it made me feel that he was any safer, but knowing that there are constantly new ideas for what will...

I'm on a quest of reading current military novels... And now I know more than I probably should.Thanks Mary Roach for bringing all these intimate details to us.

Mary has a super easy to follow writing style that is part of her huge popularity. And this book covers some pretty interesting topics.

Lots of science (human factors and more) is used in designing equipment, clothing, and training for military for a wide variety of conditions.

Mary Roach! Merry Roach! Always fun, informative, irreverent and fun again!

This is the second Mary ROach book I’ve read and I can’t get enough of her wit, her style and her amazing ability to find out things I’d never expect a lay person would be allowed...

Grunt is Mary Roach’s entertaining yet informative take on military science. She continues her successes of Stiff and Packing for Mars with this latest edition of writer learning...

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Being familiar with Roach's other works I wasn't too surprised that the focus would be on the obscure or less "heroic" aspects of military technology/science, although I...