I recently read on Reddit (take it with a huge grain of salt; we all know how reliable that site is) that a North Vietnamese soldier was interviewed after the end of the Vietnam War and he said that he had once observed a U.S. base from a distance and saw helicopters bringing in hot water so that the American troops could take hot showers. He said that at that moment he knew North Vietnam would win. They were willing to live in miserable holes for months at a time to defeat the Americans, whereas the Americans couldn’t even go a day without a hot shower.
Leaving aside that war for a moment, is this actually a thing? I can believe that U.S. helicopters would bring in water for drinking, but have never heard of them ferrying hot water for showers. What sort of container would they use?
Tangential question: If that tale isn’t true, then how do soldiers generally shower when in the field in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria? Do they get some water, boil it, wait for it to cool down a bit, then douse themselves?
This sounds like a number of other apocryphal stories about realizing how the war is gonna turn out.
I’m actually surprised that the story isn’t,
‘Once I observed helicopters bringing in hot water so that American troops could take showers while we were living in miserable holes I realized we had no chance against a country that could do that.’
That’s a rhetorical question. Obviously he couldn’t. The story is therefore apocryphal or exaggerated (as in, water was delivered, but he either never said or had no basis to claim the water was hot).
Consider also:
(b) they sponge off or shower with water at air temperature.
(c) they don’t shower “in the field.”
Not exactly the same level of “in the field”, but deployed to Saudi Arabia, living in tents, our shower water was stored in large bladders left out in the sun. There was plenty of hot water for showers without requiring any external heating.
also, soldiers deployed are inventive. If a soldier wants hot water, he or she will figure out a way to make or get some eventually.
In my time in the army, I saw many soldiers making use of solar to heat water for showers. There are in fact systems you can buy that consist of a black 5 gallon jug with a spigot on the bottom. You fill it with water and set it in a sunny spot for the day and get a warm shower at the end of the day. some of them also come with a collapsible shower stall and hose with a shower head.
The army, and I’ll go out on a limb and say the marines also, aren’t going to bother with the logistics of heating and transporting hot water.
Much like the apocryphal story that a German general was shown a birthday cake retrieved from a downed American supply plane. At that point he knew that the war was pretty much over - his troops were starving yet the Yankees could fly in birthday cakes
I’ve never been military but I’ve lived in bush camps a lot, as long as you have the water setting up a hot shower is no problem at all, there are any number of ways it can be done
Since the British disguised their first-ever tracked armoured fighting machine development program as a water tank program, and the name stuck, who can say whether there was not some nifty CIA retro code work going on. Maybe they were choppering in some heavy duty armament cunningly labelled, ‘Hot Water - handle with care’? I mean, this is exactly what the CIA is paid to do, and clearly it worked on one enemy combatant - lulling them into believing that somehow they’d be able to flog the living bejesus out of the world’s largest industrial nation.
The ‘free surface’ effect means that water (and liquids generally) are things you don’t want to be flying as cargo unless the container is completely full, or completely empty. A gallon of water weighs ten pounds (yes, I know your gallon is smaller) and one gallon wont get you very far spread around multiple people.
As said previously hot water for showers isn’t that hard unless you’re outdoors and it’s currently snowing/raining.
When my old piece of junk water heater was on the fritz I’d just boil water on the stove in a large soup pot and use that with a wash cloth to give myself a hot shower. Also I don’t know if this is realistic but I remember seeing in a movie a guy using a metal 40 gallon barrel as a warm bathtub by filling it with water and putting a small fire under it.
thats what we were always told. Probably some truth to it, thats part of why beards aren’t allowed and mustaches must be kept short and neatly trimmed.
From what I’ve read, there isn’t a whole lot of showering in the field, but rather a lot of baby wipes and washing what you can (hands/face).
I also get the impression that once you’re no longer “in the field”, there are usually considerably more comfortable digs, and stuff like hot showers, etc… are intentionally supplied for morale and hygiene reasons.
The OP’s quoted tale sounds a lot like a sort of reverse psychology warning about how “soft” US troops are, because we supply them with creature comforts like hot water, warm food, etc… and how this makes them unfit for combat or something.
In fact, scientific study has found that a lot of the creature comfort stuff that some people think makes our troops “soft” actually helps them fight better and longer than otherwise- stuff like air conditioned tanks, hot showers, good food on submarines, etc… are all things shown to provide increases in combat readiness and capability, instead of the opposite.
To the Western ear, that’s a weird conclusion for a soldier to make. Most Westerners would expect such a sight to be demoralizing, like the scene in Sahara where Bogart and his buddies trick the thirsty Germans into surrendering by pretending they have enough water to bathe in.
