The US Marine Corps is trying to reduce its enormous energy footprint as it sends an extra 10,000 troops into Afghanistan
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US Marine Corps goes green in Afghanistan
telegraph.co.uk
The US Marine Corps is trying to reduce its enormous energy footprint as it sends an extra 10,000 troops into Afghanistan.
A team of energy conservation experts seeking for ways to reduce cost of keeping American boots on the ground will accompany the soldiers as they deploy.
Fuel is one of the Marine Corps’s largest expense.
In the harsh Afghan climate the Marines burn through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. Getting fuel and water supplies into land locked Afghanistan is expensive and the convoys are often targeted by roadside bombs.
At the first Marine Corps Energy Summit in a Washington hotel yesterday, General James Conway, the Corps Commandant, said he was sending energy experts by the end of the month to carry out the first Marine energy audit.
Despite their reputation a rugged warriors, the Marines use air conditioners to keep tents cool and the Pentagon is keen to reduce such extravagance in war time. One method being tried is to spray foam insulation onto the exterior of the tents.
Back in the US, all personnel have been ordered to switch off computers during non working hours.
To remain fiscally prudent, “go green” the Marines were ordered.
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Wild Thing’s comment……
One method being tried is to spray foam insulation onto the exterior of the tents.
Yep, that’s ll keep the heat in very nicely in the blazing hot summers.
Yeah that’s the ticket. Let the environmentalist wackos run the military. Have we lost our friggin’ minds? And what theh hell is wrong with the top brass for even listening to these people sheesh!
Chesty would have something to say to the enviro terrorists ……count on it.
“A team of energy conservation experts….”
They’ll be lucky to save the amount of energy it took to ship their dead weight over there, and oh yeah…
This will be very dangerous to the men whose lives are on the line. There’s one mission and one focus, anything else is a deadly distraction.
The last group you want to attack for use of resources should be the troops. They get the worst accommodations, worst food and operate in the worst environments of all the services to start. Whatever we can do to make these guys a little more comfortable we should.
I have something for these enviro terrorists! You bet I am angry! Dear God please let me meet in person one of these enviro terrorists just so I can tell them what I think of them.
So what else is new, the Marine Corps is going on the Austere Budget again. Bringing back the old cliche’, ‘if the Armny aint shitcanned it the Marine Corps aint got it.’
And it is back to the old Shoe leather express, for a ride. Thats not new either.
Why in hell don’t they ration gasoline, worked during the Second World War. Why punish the Military with their stupid global warming scheme. We are trying to fight a war for god sake. Are they going to ration combat outfits, so todday if you use too much fuel sorry bout that you can’t use anymore til next month. This more that stupid its a death sentence for the Military.
Environmental correctness in war. Cripes! The only enviromental problems in Afghanistan and Iraq are muslim terrorists.
I think the military is having to use tungsten cored small arms ammo because the enviro politicians declared lead based ammo hazardness to the environment. I don’t know if this is only for training or also for combat. I don’t know if it affects the ballistics of the ammo or not. But, the reasons behind it are loony.
They’d be happy if our guys used thigh bones as clubs…like early hominids.
…until PETA showed up.
“One method being tried is to spray foam insulation onto the exterior of the tents.”
Ok. So they spray the foam on the tents. Now, when time comes to bug-out, what do they do with the foam tent? It won’t fold up anymore. Do they need a special group of tent moving engineers to come in and jack up the tent and load it on a flatbed? Can’t burn it, toxic fumes. Call in a hazmat team to properly dismantle and bag up the hazardous waste? Then ship it to a processing facility?
I see this kind of idiocy all the time in the oilfield. It’s what makes oil exploration in the arctic a horribly expensive enterprise.
Mark is absolutely right on!!!
Jeeze, I was in a unit hauling supplies to the Marines, 101st Airborne, 1st Air Cav, 1st Inf, and just about anyone else in the bush the length & breadth of I corps and upper II Corps. That included all items class 1 through class 9, hauling fuel was our mainstay. The Marines always sucked hind teat in supply, no new vehicles, no new equipment. I saw zero waste around them, everything was precious and water was amongst the most precious of commodities.
“One method being tried is to spray foam insulation onto the exterior of the tents.”
Right!!! Dumbasses, 1. You have just ruined a tent. 2. You have contaminated that tent with a product that doesn’t break down in land fills. 3. Will the mandatory Hazmat crews be on hand also?
Fuel, how about letting some of those environmental experts pack the water, rations, Ammo and heavy weapons for the Marines, they’ll have a much better understanding of Marine requirements.
This means a curtailment in electrical power to run the communication radios and computers so vital today, that electrical generator isn’t solar or wind powered. They’ll have to revert to field rations because the cooks use gasoline fired cooking devices and water heaters in the field for sanitation.
How does the supply chain get supplies to remote units and outposts? How do medical personnel extract the wounded or reinforce those about to perish from encirclement?
Brilliant you bunch of McNamara ingrained assholes.
Let me point out another fact, it’s slackers like these environmentalists that have cost the lives of many a trooper. That most precious of commodities, water is gathered locally.
In the RVN that meant from the streams and rice paddies, water contaminated with all the rainbow defoliant agents, we waded in it, we slept in it, we bathed in it, we washed our clothes in it and we cooked with and drank that shit.
Water is so precious we went months without bathing, just to have drinking water, our clothes rotted off and even our hair mildewed, the bleeding rashes were unbelievable. How many of you have seen a human with ‘warbles’ or had dysentery?
Is there any wonder Agent Orange is still a plague amongst us? This defoliant was sold as a cost cutting and life saving measure, another half baked idea that wasn’t thought out, the only thing was we survived the ordeal. Maimed for life!!!
Don’t begrudge the troops their small pleasures. You haven’t froze your ass off in winter, baked in the heat of summer, crawled amongst the vines, slept amongst the vermin or endured the shock and trauma of battle. Spend a day and night in a Tank in summer and winter. Go and try to sleep in that tent, better yet sleep out under the stars as many a foot soldier has. Ve haf drugs for malaria!!!
Jim Warren, thank you for reminding me of the asinine practices in the patch, everything is back hauled out or the operators get gouged by NANA Corp for disposal(they can bury refuse, nobody else can). The patch is a place where the ignorant idiots summer marched to protest our use of seal oil. being self contained the Arctic oil patch has two things in common with the military, all water is surface water – dead fish and all and they burn their shit, I know you know what I’m talking about:)
You enviro-whacko’s have enjoyed life, liberty and your personal freedom at the expense of the military too long. Not no, but hell no!!!
Who concocted this idiot idea? It’s one of dumbest things I have ever heard of! Keep the enviro wackos out of the military’s business! I just can’t understand why so many think it’s such a good idea to mess with what God made. How dare they “assume” that they can make better what God created? This world was perfect until man started messing with it, trying to make it better. I have no qualms about improving our lifestyles, but not going overboard with it, like the carbon footprint wackos.
I really appreciate all of your input.
This thing really ticked me off.