I needed another good book to dispatch to the old soldiers' home and so didn't have time to more than glance at it, but thank Ashley Bidwell of Whitney, Texas, for fulfilling our wish. I am fifty years away from my service in the Signal Corps during the Cold War in West Germany and our training and equipment were more like that of the vets of WWI and WWII that I knew so many of, than today's service. Much of the book is about technical advances (which I read of in Air Force Magazine, The Economist, etc.) but Ms. Roach has not lost her trademark spin. In Chapter 14 she shares with readers 'how the dead help the living stay that way.' "In military autopsies, medical hardware is examined alongside the software of organs and flesh. The idea is to provide feedback to the men and women who worked on these patients. Did, say, the new supraglottic airway device work the way then manufacturer promised? Was it placed correctly? Could anything have been done differently? The feedback happens via a montly combat mortality teleconference, part of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System program Feedback to the Field. In the past, solid, quantified feedback took the form of published papers. In the time it takes to have a study peer-reviewed and published in a medical journal, a lot of lives can be lost. This is so much better."
Bibliography. No index (so I reduced my evaluation by one star).
Bibliography. No index (so I reduced my evaluation by one star).
Jody M. (jodymcgrath) -
Not my favorite Mary Roach novel. Still amazing, I mean it is Mary Roach. I just felt like she could only be a spectator, a reporter for this book, whereas, in so many of her other books she is a huge participant. She did participate when she could, this is Mary, but due to a lot of it being military and government stuff, a lot of the time, she could only tell us other people's stories. Still an amazing book. Mad props to the men and women of the Armed Service and all those who support them, whether it be, family, friends and community, or the unseen volunteers, body donors, janitors, food service personnel and everyone else in between. We get to sleep easier because they all do their job. Thank you all for making my life better.
Elizabeth R. (esjro) -
Grunt is a collection of essays about science as it applies to the military. Previous readers of Mary Roach's books will know what to expect in terms of tone and style (lots of laughs and an annoying amount of footnotes).
Some of the chapters work better than others. I found the section on the history of the stink bomb boring and only vaguely relevant to the theme of book. Roach is at her best when talking to the scientists and physicians who develop technologies such as flame resistant fabrics and treatments for diarrhea, and the soldiers who are affected by them.
Some of the chapters work better than others. I found the section on the history of the stink bomb boring and only vaguely relevant to the theme of book. Roach is at her best when talking to the scientists and physicians who develop technologies such as flame resistant fabrics and treatments for diarrhea, and the soldiers who are affected by them.
