Dan Lamothe//Staff
CAMP HANSON, Afghanistan — I’m still at Camp Hanson in a tent without air-conditioning, but before I get any farther into this trip, I thought I’d point out some old-fashioned Marine ingenuity.
While I was at Camp Dwyer, I shared temporary quarters with an embarker from Okinawa. He shared his interesting way of getting ice-cold water.
While Marines obviously don’t have refrigerators in their tents, the lucky ones do sleep in Alaska Environmental Control Units, or ECUs. As you can see from this photo to the right, they include a long tube that starts on one wall, then makes its way up and across the cieling.
The soft tube, maybe about two feet wide, pushes cold air across the tent from a unit outside. Considering the tents heat up like ovens without air conditioning, it takes a fair amount of cold air to regulate the temperature.
Fortunately, there are also holes along the side of the tube to let the AC out along the way. You can see where I’m going with this, right?
Water bottle in the tube, nice and quiet. Works like a charm, the Marine said.
2 Comments
Cold water – Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!
Leave it to a reporter to find a cool spot. Ernie Pyle didn’t have it so good. Get us a few names from Springfield area and let us know if they need anything. fgr