RICHARD BLIMESTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT
It happens, sometimes, but not enough to make much difference. The part of the world where battle may be joined in is shortest on what it needs the most. So the most crucial war material doesn't go bang, it goes. The dry desert air sucks water from the body almost as fast as it goes in. Here are some well-irrigated US Marines just following orders.
LT. ELIZABETH THOMAS, U.S. NAVY DOCTOR
Here we dispense three bottles of water to Marines everyday. Their bottles are about a liter and a half.
RICHARD
Four and a half liters here, but in combat or a chemical biological protective suit, that’ll more than double.
LT. CMDR, JIM LETEXIER, U.S. NAVY MEDICAL PLANNER
If you’re taking a break from the action, you need to be grabbing your canteen.
RICHARD
This camp of something over 1,000 Marines already consumes more than 13,000 gallons a day, water for drinking, washing clothes, and cooking, and hygiene. Be fore the mess tent, wash hands. Drinking water alone for say a 150, 000 troops in action could total almost 3 million gallons a week. Where do you get that kind of water? Reinforcements on the march. Kuwait’s only pure water aquiver is pushing its limits and it sells out everyday, two-thirds of it to the military. That’ll take care of around a -third of the troops. So, ah, this is more like it, Desalination. Kuwait, which gets only six inches or 50 cm of rain a year, leads the world in tapping the salty gulf. This plant alone turns out 130 million gallons a day.
