On Mon, September 8, 2008 10:55, Bahrs, Art wrote:
>
>    The U.S. Army recommends 4 hours of sleep per 24 hours... And I must
> admit that after about 36 hours awake... I have to write things down to
> remember them for longer than about 30 minutes :)  I have no clue what
> the record for going without sleep is but after about 72 hours... I am
> toast and write everything down and still forget to look at what I
> wrote... Sigh... Must be why I retired from the military :)
>

I stood watch-on/watch-off (12 hour shifts) as a submarine watch keeper
for up to ninety days at a stretch.  As executive officer in the surface
fleet I would rise every day at sea at 03:30, have the galley fires lit,
take over the morning bridge watch from 04:00 until 08:00 and, after
spending all day dealing with each and every department head's daily list
of defects, training reports, exercise serials, discipline issues and
efficiency assessments I would finally end my day reviewing the ships
stores consumption reports and punishment book until 22:00.  Again, this
routine would persist for weeks on end.  I now recognize that by the end
of the first week at sea I was probably little more than a walking
automaton and that tasks that took me all day to complete probably should
not have consumed more than a few hours had I been rested.

The problem with being impaired is that until its effects become too gross
to deny, usually because we are confronted with some adverse event such as
an automobile accident, the one impaired has no way of assessing their
degree of impairment.

Considering combat and sleep. Blue on blue incidents to not seem to occur
with fresh troops as often as they do with troops that have been engaged
for prolonged periods without adequate rest.  Command failures to not seem
to occur with anything like the same frequency in fresh troops as they do
in tired ones.  Military operations tend to make most of their gains in
their first few hours and then become less and less productive and more
and more costly.

So I would say that the idea of four hours of rest in twenty-four being
adequate simply reflects military assessment of the value the human asset.
 An active presence counts for far more than capability at the individual
level.  Combat is, after all, a very rare event when compared to the
totality of military activity.  Its effects are experienced by very few
percentage of all military personnel and even among those, relatively
infrequently.  It is the grave consequences of combat that magnify its
effect in our imaginations.

Recall that the primary purpose of ground forces is simply to be there and
to encounter the enemy.  Most of the actual killing is done by explosive
delivered at long range.  You do not have to be particularly alert to get
shot at and thus fix your opponent's position for the pilots and
artillerymen.  The risks posed by fatigue to the individual soldier may be
great but its cost to overall military effectiveness is negligible.

The problem with the military, as with many male dominated professions, is
that sleep deprivation is considered by many as a "test" of manliness. 
The ability to keep on going for days at a stretch is reckoned a measure
of ability and not, as it should be, seen as a grave character defect
demonstrating poor judgement.

Given the choice, would anyone here prefer to be operated on by a surgeon
that has just risen from a refreshing eight hour sleep, or one starting
hour 23 of a 24 hour shift?  Why should anyone ever have to accept less
than the absolute best care that can be provided?

-- 
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James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
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