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I was fortunate enough to never actually require the “silver bullet” administered from my friendly platoon Corpsman. The dubious honor is reserved for heat casualties, either during a run or a hike or something otherwise physically demanding and dehydrating. For a long time I thought it was an urban myth of sorts, just something your Platoon Sergeant would tell you to keep you from falling out. I learned that it was, in fact, a real thing to have a thermometer inserted into your rectum when a Marine in my platoon fell victim to the Hawaiian humidity and heat.
If there was any motivation for me to fear falling victim to the heat, it was the looming fear of having foreign objects forcibly penetrate me while barely conscious. It’s the same reason I don’t go to Oakland wearing 49er’s apparel. (This week it might actually be okay with the Super Bowl and all)
This is purely anecdotal, but I always felt like the more average sized people had less trouble on runs and hikes than either the very large or very small. Bigger guys require more energy to move their amount of weight, smaller guys are just… small. Somehow I struck a happy medium and never fell out of any runs or hikes that I can remember (the only time I ever came close was when I was rocking a viral-induced fever and had to go on a moto flak run with our new Lieutenant). I’m not saying I was particularly skilled at these things, I was average at best, but at the very least I never fell out.
If you keep one thing in your head during morning PT, let it be this:
Don’t fall out or you’ll get things shoved up your butt.
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