Yon’s latest dispatch includes this handy advice:
We walked and walked, and Soldiers kept asking me if I was okay. Especially one Soldier named Staff Sergeant Chuomg Le, who kept asking if the heat was getting to me. I kept saying I would be carrying him before he would be carrying me. He just laughed. Other Soldiers said Le is a physical animal. But one of the tricks to combat reporting that I’ve learned is you don’t have to be tougher than all the Soldiers, just tougher than one. When the first one collapses, and they stop to stick an IV into him, you also get a break.
In fact, the next day three Soldiers would collapse from the heat during some fighting, and two of them were so dehydrated that their veins collapsed, proving once again that you don’t have to be tougher than everyone, just the guys who don’t drink enough water. If you can beat those guys, you are like the Lion King of reporters. Soldiers say, “I can’t believe the photographer is still standing when Sergeant So-and-So face-planted.” It’s all smoke and mirrors. I drink water like a fish and dive for every sliver of shade, thinking of the body like a battery that gets drained quickly by the heat and sun. With only so much juice, taking every sliver of shade, even if it’s only for 30 seconds, and pounding that water continuously, all adds up to a longer charge.