MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- The outdoor oven that is Yuma, Ariz., was turned up higher than usual during the last week in July — packing a sucker punch even for Marines who’d been to Iraq twice.
In Iraq, desert temperatures can reach the 130s, said Lance Cpl. Raul Montecon, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“Iraq is about 20-30 degrees hotter, with dry heat,” Montecon said, referring to Yuma’s steady diet of temps hovering around 110.
But 124 degrees — that’s hot! And that’s what Marines with Combined Logistics Company 119, Combined Logistics Battalion 1 — including a reported 36 who succumbed to the heat — faced during their pre-deployment training July 25-29.
“You can never [truly] be prepared for what Iraq has to offer,” said Lance Cpl. Adam Blood, a motor transportation operator with CLC-119. “The heat out there is something you’ve never experienced anywhere else.”
One of the unit’s platoon commanders, 1st Lt. Mark Minella, agreed with the evaluation. For him, the training was tough but necessary.
“Coming into heat like this, not everyone is assimilated,” said Minella, with 2nd platoon.
By the end of the training evolution, 36 Marines and sailors participating in the exercise suffered varying levels of heat injury, according to Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Michael Anderson, a corpsman with the unit.
Every Marine or sailor who was considered a heat casualty, regardless of the level of injury, received at least three IVs each, he said.
“[The experience] is as good as the staff noncommissioned officers and noncommissioned officers can make it out to be,” Minella said. “But 110 degrees is 110 degrees.”
“The heat in Iraq will really take it out of you,” Blood confirmed. “You’ll go down to take a nap and you might just not wake up.”
That is why the training in Yuma’s desert conditions was critical for the unit’s newer Marines.
“This training is definitely as realistic as it’s going to get prior to us going over,” Minella said.
For the corpsmen on hand, the heat simply kept them busy.
“You can only last for so long in this heat,” pointed out Anderson.
The biggest concern in heat conditions like Yuma, he said, is that Marines stay hydrated and have enough food in their systems.
Anderson, who says he works at “keeping them [the Marines] from becoming heat casualties,” added the training “gives them an idea how hot it’s going to be” when they deploy in the next month or two.
“Iraq,” he said, “is just like this. Nice and hot.”
The corpsman had three simple nuggets of advice for anyone heading to Iraq: “Stay cool and keep your head down. Keep drinking (water).”