It should be your major priority that you make sure you are well fed and watered, as rested as you can be and as warm/cool and dry as is reasonable given the situation. As they used to say in the British Army: eat when you can, sleep when you can, shit when you can.

For you to be able to achieve this you need to be able to do two things: make a shelter from the sun or rain, depending, and find then prepare water and food. Learn to do this efficiently and you will not only make a better soldier but you will make every posting and mission a lot more comfortable for yourself. You might even enjoy yourself; getting paid to visit interesting, exotic places and shoot the locals.

DRINKING WATER

Like air, water only becomes an issue when it is in short supply. As a rule, this happens in warm countries where there is little surface water, no snow and few taps or water faucets. When you are travelling in vehicles, you can carry all the water you need. When you are in an organized camp or position then the officers should have plenty of water supplied or they are not much good.

First wash in a month after an extended patrol somewhere in Africa. One of the men scrounges water from an armoured unit. Armour always have plenty of water – infantry don’t when they are travelling on foot. (Author’s Collection)

Water supply gets more interesting when you are doing proper soldiering; working as infantry on foot and away from resupply for a number of days. In some places you have to carry all your water on your back and water gets surprisingly heavy. Every litre weighs exactly one kilogram but feels more. You also come to notice how much you drink.

In hot countries, especially, make sure you carry sufficient water for the expected length of your patrol or the period until the next resupply so you can avoid sourcing the water locally if possible. Remember without water you will cease to be effective in a day or two and die just a couple of days after that.

In camp

In hot climates such as North Africa or the Middle East you will require a surprisingly large amount of water to balance what you lose through sweating. In camp you are likely to be able to drink your fill whenever you like so it is not an issue. What does become an issue though, when you are drinking like a fish, is the huge amount of salt you lose through the extra sweating. This salt has to be replaced from somewhere and in a hot climate, where you are drinking your fill, you may be sweating so much that your food does not supply what you need. Often in a hot, dry climate you do not realize how much you are sweating because it dries instantly. You may notice a crusty white covering on your skin – this is the salt you are losing: taste it.

Take advice from your medical staff as to the amount of water you need to drink and do remember to take the salt pills with which you will be issued to replace your losses. If the salt in your body – the medics call it electrolyte – reduces too much you will get muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and then become very, very ill. Take your salt pills at the same time as you take your multi-vitamins so you remember.

Water discipline

Despite what I have just said above, I am talking to soldiers not little boys. The fact your body feels thirsty and the sun is shining does not mean that you need to drink all you feel like drinking while you are out on patrol. There is a limit to how much water you can carry and that limit fixes how long you can remain operational – or stay on your feet. By exercising a little self-discipline you can extend this period dramatically from a day to maybe four days without carrying so much water that you can carry little else. I have always carried two 1-litre water bottles on my belt and ammunition-filled magazines in ‘chest webbing’ in case I lose my back-pack. In my back-pack I carry two further water bottles, at least, and more ammunition plus explosives, comms gear, sleeping gear etc.

On long-range reconnaissance patrols behind enemy lines, such as this SASR patrol in Iraq, conservation of ammunition and food/water supplies is crucial. (ADF)

On extended patrols without support I have always taken just a couple of sips during the day as the water comes straight out through your skin if you drink more. It just takes a little self-discipline to wait for the evening and make a nice brew of tea or coffee; then you keep the water in as you rest in the cool of the evening. This way you should be able to survive and operate without any discomfort on a couple of litres a day whatever the health freaks say. If push comes to shove you can extend this to four days by limiting yourself to one litre a day. I’m not saying it’s fun though.

Your officers will plan patrols in such a way that you are re-supplied with water or return before you run out. Clearly, on foot you cannot carry the water to last for more than a few days whatever you do so in areas where you cannot re-supply in the field this limits the effective length of patrols. Of course, in war plans go wrong. All the time. My advice is to carry more water than you think you will need. If you are injured or pinned down by the enemy it is the one thing which you will really need – even more than ammunition. You are just as dead from thirst as from an enemy bullet.

TOP TIP!

Sourcing water from thin air...

If there is no water available from streams or standing water then condensing it from the air with plastic sheets is possible but is very time consuming so it is really only useful in truly desperate situations.

Maybe I’m being a little over-cautious and old-fashioned here. I’ve regularly had to live off the land while on foot patrol in Africa and elsewhere for a month or more at a time without re-supply. And I’ve come to no harm so I do know a little about getting by. I have at times carried fruit-flavoured sugar crystals to turn water into fruit drink as a treat and to cover the taste of stinking water. I think it is good for morale to have a little ‘treat’. Watch out for soldiers who add alcohol to their water. Boredom and stress can make guys do crazy things. They need taking aside for a quiet beating as they are a liability to themselves and their mates.

The modern soldier spends a lot of time riding in a vehicle – in which case there is all the water you want – you could even maybe wash or clean your teeth. And if you are on foot then you can very often get a helicopter re-supply. But you never know what is going to happen – or go wrong – so be prepared and always keep some water by you. You don’t want to survive an ambush that wrecks your vehicle and radio and kills your mates only to die of some disease with only a Latin name which you caught from the contaminated water full of camel shit you drank in the next village.

Sourcing water in the field

So, you are out on foot patrol enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and you find you have empty water bottles you want to top up. Where do you look? Well you don’t do a Ray Mears and start digging up cactus roots for a start. Why? Because Ray is the equivalent of a professor of survival and can find water where the lizards are thirsty and food where the rats are hungry. You are not. And much, much more importantly, Ray has all the time in the world to find food and water with no one shooting at him.

There are certain roots you can extract water from and you can drink urine and animal or fish blood but this is not principally a book about surviving against the elements so if this is your interest you might get yourself a book from an expert like Lofty Wiseman (legendary SAS Sergeant Major and my boss when I was a youngster) on surviving in the specific area you are operating in. It is also Sod’s Law that you will find little or no water without going miles out of your patrol route and that which there is may be contaminated or poisoned against use by Western troops. Or camels may have drunk from it – and we all know what disease camels carry don’t we?