Medical Implications of High Altitude Combat
Abstract
The fact that a piece of land is inaccessible, uninhabitable, or of little practical value is no guarantee that nations will not fight over it. Long, bloody wars have been fought and are being fought for inhospitable mountain real estate located between 10,000 and 23.000 feet (3050 and 7015 meters) in elevation. Examples of such high altitude combat include the 1953 to 1974 Chinese invasion of Tibet and subsequent guerrilla war, the 1953 to l958 Mau-Mau rebellion where British troops fought rebels in the Aberdares mountains of Kenya, the 1962 Sino-Indian War in the Himalayan mountains bordering Bhutan and Tibet, Soviet-Mujahideen combat in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains from 1979 to 1989, the Peruvian government's clashes with Sendero Luminoso guerrillas in the Andes throughout the 1980s, and the Indo-Pakistan continuing conflict over the ownership of the Siachen glacier which began in April 1984. Recent (1999) Indo-Pakistani clashes in the Kargil area of disputed Kashmir again demonstrate that high altitude combat is often contemporary combat. Tens of thousands of combatants have perished in inhospitable ice, snow, and rock while battling for national prestige, water rights, survival, or geographic positioning. The US. Army has not had to fight at such altitudes, but with the war on terror, the possibility of U.S. military commitment to such areas is not all that remote. Operation Anaconda, in Afghanistan, is the highest altitude ground fight (1 0,500 feet) in U.S. history, Since the U.S. Army is still inexperienced fighting at these altitudes, it should draw from the experience of others. There are some distinct medical problems that medical personnel should plan for in the event of a high altitude contingency operation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA593536
Entities
People
- Lester W. Grau
- William A. Jorgensen