“A previously healthy 20-year-old male trainee developed chest pain, shortness of breath, and neck pain after repeatedly shouting “Hooah!” during a motivational squad competition. He was found to have developed a pneumomediastinum with soft tissue crepitus of the neck. He had an uneventful recovery. Unique to the military training environment, vigorous shouting, including “Hooah!” as […]
Tag: military
An Improved Swagger Stick, Designed for Good Measure
This invention made it convenient both to swagger and to measure with exactitude: “Military interval swagger stick,” US 2923063, granted February 2, 1960 to Lorenzo D. Hansen. The patent document explains: “The use of swagger sticks is a military custom. They are carried by officers during drills and parades. Other than its limited value as […]
Riddle and Tribble on Military Diarrhea
Military life is not all glory, Riddle and Tribble and colleagues remind us in this study: “Military importance of diarrhea: lessons from the Middle East,” John W. Sanders, Shannon D. Putnam, Mark S. Riddle, and David R. Tribble, Current Opinion in Gastroenterology, vol. 21, 2005, pp. 9–14. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing this […]
Bunkerology
Dr. Luke Bennett, a Senior Lecturer & Course Leader at the Department of the Built Environment at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, is a leading, perhaps the leading ‘Bunkerologist’. In fact it was he who created the term – meaning ‘the study of bunkers’. For a recent publication on the subject, see : ‘Who goes there? […]
Huh? Finger-length Ratios & Military Branches & Celebrity Worship
Which person goes into which branch of the military? The answer is related to the relative lengths of each person’s fingers, suggests this study by a researcher named Huh: “Born to be a Marine: Digit ratios and military service,” HaengRyang Huh, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 53, Issue 3, August 2012, Pages 166–168. The author, […]
Slimeball: A sticky weapon to immobilize large ships
Slime would become the US military’s prime weapon to immobilise large ships under a scheme outlined for the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College. Lieutenant Commander Daniel Whitehurst, a student at the college, figured out how to combine a raft of existing technologies to produce the officially “non-lethal” armament he calls The Slimeball. He prepared a report in […]
Military Experiments on Fruitcake (Part 2: 1982-4)
This is part 2 of our look at the US military’s tests, conducted at their laboratories in Natick, Massachusetts, during the 1970s and 1980s, on fruitcake, the time-honored holiday comestible. They issued at least two reports. Here’s a look at their second report: “Effects of Storage Time and Temperature on Nutritional Content of Fortified Fruitcake” [Final […]
Military Experiments on Fruitcake (Part 1: 1981)
During the 1970s and 1980s the US military conducted a series of tests on fruitcake, the long-lasting holiday comestible. They issued at least two reports. Here’s a look at the first report: “Nutritionally Fortified Fruitcake (Thermoprocessed, Flexibly Packaged) Developed for Shuttle Flight Use,” T. Branagan, NATICK/TR-82/004, June 1981. (AD A129 878). The report features these […]
Military etiquette/grooming film
The US government produced this consistently dull, depressing training film in 1970 to give military personnel the low-down on etiquette and grooming. The music is peppy, almost jazzy, to the degree allowed by the etiquette that governs the production of dull, depressing training films for military personnel who may be required to endure instruction on […]
Autonomous Paper Airplane / Missile Defense System
“An Autonomous Missile Defense System,” Daine Richard Lesniak, Douglas J. Hickok, Kristopher Whisler, and Michael C. Rowe, UWP Computer Science and Software Engineering Student Conference Publications, 2005. The authors, at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville, report [AIR 16:1]: