Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier’s most challenging adversaries–panic, exhaustion, heat, noise–and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper … zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
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I simply LOVE Mary Roach’s books – she manages to blend information with entertainment in a way that is just fascinating and fun… In this, her latest, she tackles the subject of the military – but not traditional military science. After all, where would be the fun in that? No, she focuses on the behind-the-scenes stuff – the things that scientists need to address but no one else rarely does: dysentery, military clothing and gear, sweating/heat exhaustion… Through interviews and first-person experiences, she learns, questions, and pokes gentle fun at the elements of scientific discovery and application that the rest of the world largely ignores. And she does it with aplomb. I’m no fan of military reading, generally, but in Mary Roach’s hands the topic has not only caught my attention but held it, raptly…
I absolutely love all of the books by Mary Roach that I have read. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War tackles many subjects that one would never think of concerning military and wartime difficulties. For example, there are chapters dedicated to heat adaptive clothing, maggot therapy, diarrhea, and even penile transplants. I realize it sounds a little off-putting but Roach is a master at making learning about science informative and interesting. She has an incredible sense of humor and it is near impossible to get through a chapter without literally laughing out loud. I actually find myself reading passages aloud to my husband and teenage daughter frequently (and they both seem just as fascinated most of the time!).
A definite must read in my opinion!
Mary Roach has a magic touch when it comes to science writing. You never feel like she’s talking down at you or going over your head – she comes straight from the reader’s perspective and stays there. She seems to have a real talent for asking exactly the questions you, yourself, would want to ask.
Mary Roach has written several science books that are clever, entertaining and occasionally surprising. “Grunt” is her latest book and it reminds me of her book, “Packing for Mars”. Even though I should have known better, I expected a book about the toys: the guns, the bombs, the airplanes, the ships, the tanks, rail guns, lasers, radar, computers – you get the idea. These are not the subjects Ms Roach focused on. The flashy stuff she leaves to others. Roach writes about “weird science” – stuff she discovers while “stumbling into corners and crannies, not looking for anything specific” but knowing she has found it.
And she is a clever and witty story teller. Like the time she nervously approached a rather scary Special Ops who clearly did not want to talk to her. It took some persistence but eventually the SEAL relaxed and answered her questions. At the end he apologized for his initial behavior. It seems he mistook her for an NCIS investigator and *he* was afraid of her! Some of the humor is a little dark, for example: “If you use different blood, it voids the warranty.”
And it was educational, in a weird science sort of way. I now know more about the military considerations of diarrhea, various body odors and maggots than I ever expected to know. I have not yet decided whether this is a Good Thing or not.
On the other hand, “Grunts” is definitely a Good Thing. Definitely recommended.
I love our military, police and fire fighters. This book fills you with information you don’t realize of things our military does for the world. They make it a much better place, just amazing, interesting and humbling
Mary Roach could write about cardboard and make it funny and dripping with science you WANT to learn.
Here she tackles soldiers and how they soldier.
Great book as all her books are.
Excellent behind the scenes of the military
Not as funny as some of her other books, but interesting and informative.
This is the story of soldiers. What the government develops to keep them safe in combat. What the government provides for the injured. Medical studies.
My book club mostly didn’t finish this because it was so detailed with the injuries. This is the kind of book you wish everyone in Congress and the VA would read.
Maybe the injuries chapter should be moved closer to the end.