U.S. Marines note basic lesson for fighting in Afghanistan: hygiene

By DOUG MELLGREN
Associated Press Writer

SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN – For U.S. Marines based in the Afghan desert, one of the secrets of waging war in this harsh climate is a lesson most learned from their mothers.

Wash your hands.

The failure of the Soviets to follow that most basic rule of hygiene helps explain why they lost their war in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. military report.

The report says that of 620,000 Soviets who served in Afghanistan, an astounding 75.76 percent were hospitalized, most of them – 88.56 percent – not from war wounds, but from diseases often prevented by basic hygiene.

"No one ever washed their hands," U.S. Navy flight surgeon Cmdr. Steven, of Portland, Ore., said Monday. Military rules prohibit publication of the last names of most troops based at this desert airfield.

Staying clean is a struggle, with no running water, and sand everywhere – a dust storm blew across the base Monday. Until Saturday, there were not even latrines.

And yet eight days after Marines arrived in Afghanistan, "we have had zero hygiene-related illnesses," the surgeon said.

All over the camp and even out on the forward lines, troops routinely strip to the waist in the warm sun and clean themselves as best they can, with bottled water, soap and a towel.

"We all emphasize to the Marines: Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands," said Capt. Patricia, 26, a Marine Corps engineer originally from Sayre, Pa., Part of her job is to design and build sanitation facilities, including latrines.

"Whenever we set them up, I work closely with medical," said Patricia, one of the few women on the base taken over by the Marines just over a week ago.

At the medical center for the forward operating base – a few desert-brown tents and part of a building – doctors talked about the report on Soviet hygiene the health teams had studied before coming to Afghanistan.

The report, published in 1995, is called "Medical Support in a Counter Guerrilla War: Lessons learned in the Soviet Afghan War." The war ended in 1991 with a humiliating retreat after a 10-year campaign.

The report said Soviet troops suffered from poor personal hygiene, including cooks who helped spread disease by failing to wash their hands. There were no proper latrines, soldiers failed to wash themselves or change their clothes, and had poor food and little clean water.

That resulted in the spread of hepatitis, cholera, typhoid and other illnesses that could have been prevented.

The report says the Russian army has studied how the U.S. military kept its troops so healthy during the Gulf War in 1991.

The base medical center is equipped to treat wounds and perform the emergency surgery needed to keep soldiers alive until they can be flown for more thorough treatment aboard U.S. Navy ships 400 miles away in the northern Arabian Sea.

But doctors here hope for nothing to do: no illnesses, no wounds.

"Somebody said, before we left, 'May you have boredom,"' said another doctor, Lt. Cmdr. Tracy, 33 of Camden, N.J.

AP-WS-12-03-01 1454EST