Cumulative impact of low calorie intake and sleep deficit in combat

[Fuchs]

He should be judged by performance, not by the exploitation of his potential.


On the performance part; I think it's a terrible example. Leaders should lead by example, and sleep deprivation and unhealthy eating habits are terrible examples.
Not a single captain should have the opportunity to justify excessive strains by pointing at the unhealthy lifestyle of the theater commander.

[Schmedlap]

On the performance part; I think it's a terrible example. Leaders should lead by example, and sleep deprivation and unhealthy eating habits are terrible examples.

Agreed, but is 4 or 5 hours "deprivation?" The Army only owes each Soldier 4 hours. At least that is what I was taught. And is his diet "unhealthy?" It looked like he was eating some pretty good food when I saw him chowing down on CBS. It was one meal, but I didn't hear a calorie count or any mention of inadequate nutritional value.

[carl]

Being a thin mid-50s aged male is something I can speak to from current experience. I find I can do quite a lot now with only one meal a day, and that includes 1.5 to 2 hours of quite hard exercise (save the wisecracks). I don't lose weight and don't feel weak nor do I think it affects my mental acuity (save those wisecracks too). That one meal is supplemented by eating little things here and there during the day, equal to less than an additional meal.

This I attribute to the normal effects of aging, one of which seems to be a reduced metabolism. Chicks don't dig me no more but I'm cheaper to feed.

As far as his need for such a short amount of sleep, that I would guess is just
an individual variation in sleep habit and need.

I do have very extensive experience with fatigue and how it affects performance, all who fly for a living do. Microsleeps on a tight instrument approach in bad weather, especially when you know it is happening and just can't get yourself to care much because you are so damn tired, are a bit spooky. Fatigue absolutely does affect your performance and there is not much you can do about it except get some sleep. The only effective way I have found to partially compensate is to recognize the symptoms and intentionally give myself greater leeway and not give myself greater challenges than my reduced capability can handle. Fatigue is an extremely serious thing.

[Bernard Finel]

I do want a clarify a point. I am quite sure that because of effective training, it is possible for people to respond appropriately to "expected" stimuli even when sleep deprived. I mean, that is the point of training.

But no one is trained to be a theater commander, especially in a complex enviroment like COIN. He needs to be able to constantly process new information and analyze it thoroughly.

Also... I gotta say, in every clip and interview I see of him, he looks like an automaton. Walking around from village to village saying, "what do you need? What can I give you?" and responding, "We're working on it, but it takes times" to every response.

In neither the 60 Minutes piece nor the NYT Magazine essay does it seem like he's actually processing much information. Just seems like he's on autopilot. I don't know him. Everyone I know who does says he's sharp as a tack, etc.

[carl]

I do want a clarify a point. I am quite sure that because of effective training, it is possible for people to respond appropriately to "expected" stimuli even when sleep deprived. I mean, that is the point of training.

This is absolutely not true. You can not train people to function effectively when sleep deprived. They may perform effectively. They may not. It is the luck of the draw. What you can do is train them to recognize this fact, to avoid fatigue to the extent they can and know when they are fatigued and act accordingly. This is a huge thing in aviation because of all the smoking wreckage containing the cinders of tired pilots.

[Ken White]

McChrystal's or anyone elses eating and sleeping habits are not among those few things. People are different, all have different food and sleep needs and all this foolishness about sleep deprivation is true but not an issue and is very much individual condition, experience, practice and metabolism related.

Carl is right that exhaustion kills and Intel Trooper is correct in noting that about 40 straight hours gets you to the point of non compos -- everyone's heard about Ranger students talking to trees...

Fuchs may be correct in stating that McChrystal is setting a bad example -- but I'm quite sure there are hundreds of 'leaders' over there setting far worse examples on many counts. A guy who sleeps little, doesn't overeat is probably one of the most benign bad examples I've run across. Not to mention that everyone in combat gets too little sleep and eats poorly --sort of goes with the territory.

That said, combat forces you to do without sleep at all levels from PVT to GEN; the body and mind adapt as best they can. Some do it well, some less so. It's a non-issue. Everyone adapts as well as possible and most get to the point where they can go 24-30 hours or so at a stretch without too much stress and can do that several times over the period of a week or so before they need an overnight sleep. It usually works out as things cycle.

Thus, to Schmedlap's question

Do any of you look back upon your deployments and think, "boy, I thought I was thinking straight, but in hindsight, I was way too tired."

my answer is Sure, several times in all of them. Not much could have been done about them, though. Until we do combat as shift work (not unthinkable...) we're going to have that problem but as Slap says:

"...all a GI needs is a cigarette and cup of Coffey now and then and everything will be fine."

That's still true. Unfortunate, not ideal, not even marginally good -- but then war is unfortunate and not an ideal situation and there's nothing good about it...

As for McChrystal and the automaton bit; Generals are people. People vary. Everyone doesn't make useless chit chat or idle comments answering inane questions at length without saying anything of substance (thank goodness!). Creighton Abrams was one of our better products, probably with Ridgeway the best post WW II type and he was not a chatterer -- his best line was "Generals should be noted for their silences."

Note lengthy answer with little substance.

[Fuchs]

Something is badly wrong in his staff if a theater commander needs to work for more than 60 hrs a week.
He's the guy who is supposed to be shielded from micromanagement and administration annoyances in order to free up his mind for thought.


Eating only once per day is easily possible, but it's a really bad idea for performance, especially mental performance. His brain is only well-supplied a third or quarter of the day and is running on low supply the remainder of the day.

[Ken White]

Something is badly wrong in his staff if a theater commander needs to work for more than 60 hrs a week.

Needs to and does are different things...

He's the guy who is supposed to be shielded from micromanagement and administration annoyances in order to free up his mind for thought.

Totally agree. Recall however that survey after survey says Americans put in more hours at work than do most other nations in all fields of endeavor. It's a national affliction...

We have thus developed a military culture of micromanagement and our Generals, unfortunately, are gauged not on their strategic strengths and tactical and technical competence (though most are at least acceptable in those area; a few are quite sharp) but on how well they micromanage. They do tend to get too far down in the weeds. That's a bit on the simplistic side but not by much...

[IntelTrooper]

Agreed, but is 4 or 5 hours "deprivation?" The Army only owes each Soldier 4 hours. At least that is what I was taught. And is his diet "unhealthy?" It looked like he was eating some pretty good food when I saw him chowing down on CBS. It was one meal, but I didn't hear a calorie count or any mention of inadequate nutritional value.

I think what Army leaders need to remember is that everyone's body has different sleep and nutritional requirements. GEN McChrystal may only require 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. I know lots of people who only sleep that much on a regular basis and suffer no ill effects. Personally, I need 8.5 hours of sleep per night in order to not feel like garbage all day. 4 to 5 hours would make me an angry zombie.

Once, we were up for nearly 48 hours due to a little situation we got into. Around hour 44, I decided I had figured out a solution, walked up to my team leader, and proceded to explain my brilliant plan. What came out of my mouth was a bunch of nonsense, as I gathered from the way his face contorted in a mixture of confusion and anger, so rather than try to explain, I just walked away.

While many in the military would be relatively unaffected by a stretch of two or three days without sleep, I am definitely not one of them.

[slapout9]

I had real old Platoon Sergeant tell all a GI needs is a cigarette and cup of Coffey now and then and everything will be fine. Hmmmm things have changed

[slapout9]

I had real old Platoon Sergeant tell all a GI needs is a cigarette and cup of Coffey now and then and everything will be fine. Hmmmm things have changed

Lack of sleep cann affect your spellin an stuff two

[jkm_101_fso]

Finel's right about the macho culture. How many senior NCOs and Officers do you know that stay at work just to stay. For what? They aren't working. It's so stupid. It's the same with the sleep thing. I knew a Major that was always the last out of the TOC at night and the first one there in the morning. He probably slept 4 hours or less. And you know what? He was an asshole all the time and didn't make very good decisions, nor could he remember anyone's callsign.

McChrystal is the commanding general. He could get 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Why doesn't he? Is that two more hours he is awake going to defeat AQ or the Taliban? No. It's a silly culture the "zero-defect" folks created in the Army to judge performance. Lame.

One meal a day? Does he smoke or dip? Then I would understand. If I can have some snuff, then I can operate off of one meal a day. Well, I need coffee too.

Looks like you are right, Slap.

[Tom Odom]

We are better than we used to be at this but we still have a way to go...

[carl]

Finel's right about the macho culture. How many senior NCOs and Officers do you know that stay at work just to stay. For what? They aren't working. It's so stupid. It's the same with the sleep thing. I knew a Major that was always the last out of the TOC at night and the first one there in the morning. He probably slept 4 hours or less. And you know what? He was an asshole all the time and didn't make very good decisions, nor could he remember anyone's callsign.

McChrystal is the commanding general. He could get 6 or 7 hours of sleep. Why doesn't he? Is that two more hours he is awake going to defeat AQ or the Taliban? No. It's a silly culture the "zero-defect" folks created in the Army to judge performance. Lame.

One meal a day? Does he smoke or dip? Then I would understand. If I can have some snuff, then I can operate off of one meal a day. Well, I need coffee too.

Looks like you are right, Slap.

McChrystal is a very highly accomplished, fit, middle aged man. I think he knows exactly what he, as an individual, needs to function properly; how much sleep, how much food. If he only sleeps so much and eats so much per day, I suspect he isn't doing that for show, but because that is all he requires.

Now, if he expected all his people to do the same that is foolish and he could be faulted for that. If he observed his people imitating him and didn't tell them to tailor their actions to their personal needs, he could be faulted for that too. I have no idea if he does either of those things.

This comment is about McChrystal's habits only. As far as the culture goes, I defer to you guys with the experience.

[MikeF]

When a group of officials came to see Lincoln about the rumors of Grant's drinking, Lincoln is supposed to have said, "If it [drink] makes fighting men like Grant, then find out what he drinks, and send my other commanders a case!".

Same holds true for GEN Patraeus and McChrystal. I don't care what their preferences are just let them keep trucking.

I had real old Platoon Sergeant tell all a GI needs is a cigarette and cup of Coffey now and then and everything will be fine. Hmmmm things have changed

Wise words. What concerns me more today is soldier's are drinking Monster energy drinks during the day and using Ambien to sleep. That's not good. Better to stick with black coffee and nicotene.

v/r

Mike

[slapout9]

My Platoon Sgt. second piece of wisdom was 8 hours wrapped up in a pancho liner on the ground in the rain does not equal 8 hours in the rack. Point being the quality of sleep and the environment has a lot to do with it. His words were a little more graphic but I think he had a point.

[Schmedlap]

Wise words. What concerns me more today is soldier's are drinking Monster energy drinks during the day and using Ambien to sleep.

The only time that I got Ambien was when it was given out to the entire unit for the plane ride to Iraq in 2007, to avoid jet lag. Have you seen it handed it for more casual use?

In regard to the energy drinks, why are we buying that stuff and stocking it in our PX and DFAC in-country? I don't get it. (Of course, I have the same question for most of the stuff that I saw in the PX and DFAC - and for most of the amenities provided).

[MikeF]

The only time that I got Ambien was when it was given out to the entire unit for the plane ride to Iraq in 2007, to avoid jet lag. Have you seen it handed it for more casual use?

In regard to the energy drinks, why are we buying that stuff and stocking it in our PX and DFAC in-country? I don't get it. (Of course, I have the same question for most of the stuff that I saw in the PX and DFAC - and for most of the amenities provided).

Energy drinks- I saw that from direct observation. Not good IMO.

Ambien- word of mouth. Guys talking about taking uppers during the day and downers at night. Really bad stuff over a long period of time.

v/r

Mike

[Ben_0802]

The only time that I got Ambien was when it was given out to the entire unit for the plane ride to Iraq in 2007, to avoid jet lag. Have you seen it handed it for more casual use?

In regard to the energy drinks, why are we buying that stuff and stocking it in our PX and DFAC in-country? I don't get it. (Of course, I have the same question for most of the stuff that I saw in the PX and DFAC - and for most of the amenities provided).

From my personal observations, the young Marines and Soldiers today are living on a steady stream of monster, rip it, red bull, whatever. When you're at a patrol base without power for days at a time, it's hard to brew coffee, so the energy drinks are the way to go. Not the perfect answer, but when you have to stay up, you find a way.

Then, when you come back, they have to sleep, so they take ambien to get rest. I know my docs were getting a little of it from our higher HQ, but we got a ton of it from SF medics we worked with. Also, with non-prescription versions becoming prevalent, they can get it sent from home.

As leaders, we just have to be cognizant of what's happening and keep an eye on our guys.

S/F
Ben