Will Byrnes's review of Grunt (original) (raw)

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Will Byrnes's Reviews > Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

Grunt by Mary Roach

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
by

1526851

The Chicken gun has a sixty foot barrel, putting it solidly in the class of an artillery piece. While a four pound chicken hurtling in excess of 400 miles per hour is a lethal projectile…

OK, stop right there. Mary Roach’s latest venture into odd science begins with a notion that would likely raise the hackles and maybe the hopes of Rocky the Rhode Island Red of the film Chicken Run.

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Yikes!

But Rocky would be better off sticking with the usual modes of transportation for the aeronautically challenged. These are no Iron Man chickens. The poultry the Army is using for its much-enlarged version of birdshot have already been relieved of their pluck, among other things. They are standing in for the many avian perils that endanger military pilots, and have been aimed at test planes. Roach does not report whether the cannon issued a squawk along with the boom when it let the feathers fly.

This is what happens when you turn Mary Roach, author of such gleeful romps as Bonk (a long, hard look at sex), Stiff (yes, dealing with late residents, and nothing to do with that other book), Spook (looking into where they might have gone), Packing for Mars (the joys and bodily fluids of space travel), and Gulp (a journey through the alimentary canal even Captain Willard may have taken a pass on), loose on the US military. She is not interested in the best ways to harm the enemy, but in the collateral science that accompanies the military’s deadly missions. Things like dealing with noise, heat, sharks, submarine rescue, keeping coyotes away from the field test cadavers, the joys of flies and maggots, and then it gets back to familiar MR turf, keeping up with the latest science on letting go. Roach spends a lot of time at a military test location, Camp Lemonnier. I picture it being devoured by swarms of tiny, chainsaw-toothed Liz Lemons.

First, the more serious. Safety in vehicles, a favorite target for IEDs, is a major concern for the military. Roach looks at vehicles designed to minimize potential blast damage, not just to the vehicle but to its occupants. She checks out TCAPS, (Tactical Communication and Protective System) an advanced audio communications tool used primarily by Special Forces. It amplifies quiet sound and dampens loud noise.

She provides a look at progress in reconstructing, even transplanting, sex organs damaged or lost by gunfire or explosives. She works up a sweat explaining perspiration.

Until this trip, I thought of sweat as a sort of self-generated dip in the lake. But sweat isn’t cool. It’s warm as blood. It essentially is blood. Sweat comes from plasma, the watery, colorless portion of blood. (A dip in the lake cools by conduction: contact with something colder. Highly effective but not always practical.) Sweat cools by evaporation: offloading your heat into the air. Like this: when you start to overheat, vessels in your skin dilate, encouraging blood to migrate there. From the capillaries of the skin, the hot plasma is offloaded through sweat glands—2.4 million or so—onto the surface of the body to evaporate. Evaporation carries heat away from the body, in the form of water vapor.

I envision sweat vampires lurking in locker rooms. Roach explains how heat illness works. It ain’t pretty. Blast Boxers are examined, although not while…you know, they are in use. Body armor too. Turns out you would need so many layers of protection to fend off IEDs that you would be too weighted down to walk. Flame resistance in fabric is considered as well as the temperature at which human flesh burns. You will learn where the term “bite the bullet” came from and what it was really intended to accomplish. Also considered are the relative benefits of going shirtless vs shirted on a hot day, the uses of kitty litter in theater, and why the military is so insistent on personnel being clean-shaven. You will learn about the uses and hazards of filth flies and, yes, maggots. “Maggot!” as a drill sergeant (or wifely) form of address may sting a bit less after you gain a new respect for little white squigglers in these pages.

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Thanks, Sarge - USMC photo by Sgt. Reece Lodder

Aircraft design does not stop at maximizing lift, and getting the most speed and endurance per unit of fuel. There are more human concerns that need to be addressed, particularly when the shit hits the …everything.

On a long sortie out of Diego Garcia island, the only crew member capable of operating the plane’s defensive equipment abruptly left his post to use the chemical toilet—while flying over Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. On the return flight, a faulty seal combined with the pressure differential between the toilets tiered chambers causing the contents to spew into the crew cabin. “Be assured,” he deadpanned, “this blue-brown precipitation affected the navigator’s ability to concentrate on his duties.”

It would probably have been simpler had the affected crew member been the bombardier. But one must respect it when latrine humor hooks up with an actual latrine. Despite the humorous aspect, the military has to cope with thousands of personnel in foreign places, and the response to the new locale can often be gastrointestinal. What if, say, Seal Team Six, were en route to take out Osama Bin Laden and was thwarted because one or more of the seals had sprung a leak. Zero Dark Dirty? This is what Roach does, entertains us with the silliness aspect, the gross aspect, while also communicating important factual material. I guess this might be seen as a sort of Mary Poppins-ish spoon-full-of-sugar (or something) technique, using gross humor to teach us all something we didn’t know, although her evident glee at the scatological might make Roach more of a Mary _Poop_ins.

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Mary Roach - from electronpencil.com – probably the face she has on when she writes

There is much more in the book. As one has come to expect in Roach’s writing a lot of it is downright hilarious. While stopping short of staring at goats, one of the perhaps less legendary escapades of international conflict Roach sniffed out occurred when WWII allies wanted to make life miserable for Japanese officers, and so developed a particularly pungent substance that Chinese resistance fighters could surreptitiously spray on the invaders, causing them, it was expected, extreme social shame. The super secret code name for this project was…wait for it…”Who, Me?” “Million dollar Nose” man Ernest Crocker, of the chemical engineering company Arthur D. Little, was charged with developing the unlovely scent.

Samples were prepared and delivered to the NRDC [National Research Defense Committee] in two formats: a more intense “paste-form stink,” for smearing, and a liquid stink in a squirtable two ounce lead tube. Crocker assured his clients that the latter would render a target “highly objectionable for not less than two hours at 70 F.” He promised nothing short of “complete ostracism,” concluding his report with a tagline surely unique in the annals of marketing: “as lastingly disagreeable as a product of this kind can be.”

People react very differently to the same scent. A project looking for a universally repulsive fragrance concluded that the closest they could find was the “US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor.” Nothing is universal, though. One hardy soul found it to be a “wearable” scent, which makes one wonder just how challenging it must be to settle in for a number two in his loo.

None of [researcher Pam] Dalton’s other bottled vilenesses approached a workable criterion of universality. Sewage Odor was no good at all. Fourteen percent of Hispanic subjects described it as an odor that would make them feel good. Around 20 percent of Caucasians, Asians, and black South Africans thought it smelled edible. Vomit Odor made a similarly poor showing, with 27 percent of Xhosa subjects describing it as a feel-good smell and 3 percent of Caucasians being willing to wear it as a scent.

Which explains a lot about the olfactory ambience inside the rush hour F train.

This book includes sage advice on the inadvisability of drinking one’s own urine. Thanks, but I think I’ll have the iced tea instead. This is presumably not intended for those involved in extreme water sports, but they would probably profit from the information as well.

With Grunt, Mary Roach has yet again succeeded in teaching us a lot of things we never suspected, and has done so while leaving us weak from laughter. Here’s another. She also explains why we toss and turn at night in the normal course of events. And yes, we mean those who are sleeping. Sheesh! And one more. She tells us about a product that is literally called “Liquid Ass.” Don’t ask. Don’t smell. If you tell Mary Roach you think her book stinks, it would probably make her day.

I suppose one must at least try to come up with items that are less than exemplary, or that, for one reason or another, do not sit well. Tough to do with Mary Roach books. The only thing, aside from the item noted in the following paragraph, is that the chapters are a bit uneven in their humor content. This is not at all a criticism, but merely observation. It is one thing to get giddy about the pursuit of an olfactory 9th ring of hell or projectile poultry, but when dealing with burn victims and the loss of life and limb that results from IEDs and taking enemy fire, levity does not come so easily. Roach has tempered her approach to tilt away from humor when a more respectful tone is called for. Thus, some chapters will leave you howling, while others will inform your brain without going too close to your funny bone.

I came across only one item in the book that did not pass the smell test. There is a reference to General Dynamics, manufacturer of the IAV (Interim Armored Vehicle) Stryker, in which it is stated that GD owns Chevrolet. General Motors might be alarmed to learn that. Of course the volume I read is an ARE, and one presumes that either a correction is imminent, or GD and GM can be persuaded to arrange a quick deal.

Grunt has the deeply satisfying aroma of a truly illuminating book about some very real, down and dirty issues that confront not just our military, but our species. Roach offers some history on how these challenges have been approached in the past, and fills us in on what is happening now. Many of the problems she describes have significant implications for civilian life as well. The subtitle of Roach’s book is The Curious Science of Humans at War. But it is Mary Roach’s curiosity that is the real jewel here. She always finds fascinating subjects to investigate, and Grunt is no exception. Enjoy and share her merriment at the mess of our reality. It wraps a warm cover around the laser-like intelligence she brings to bear on her chosen material. In the land of popular science writing, Roach is no grunt, but a five star general. Ten-hut!

Publication date – June 7, 2016

Review first posted – 4/15/16

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages

Mary will be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on June 6, (I don't think that actually happened) but if you want a taste of what to expect, check out this video of her Daily Show visit with Jon Stewart

Here is a fun piece from the NY Times in which Mary is asked about book she didn't write. Gotta love her last line. : Mary Roach: By the Book

Other Mary Roach books we have enjoyed
-----2021 - Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
-----2013 - Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
-----2010 - Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
-----2006 - Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
-----2004 - Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

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Reading Progress

March 21, 2016 –Started Reading

March 27, 2016 –Finished Reading

April 14, 2016 – Shelved as:science

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