Solar Power Pre-Deployment To Afghanistan?

dAzED1 writes "My little brother is heading for training at 29 Palms as a Navy Corpsman with FMF. He gets a [Sailor|Soldier|Marine]'s pay, so while he can't afford gadgets, I can; since he'll be in a LAR unit, I was thinking of getting him a small video camera, an iPod, and some sort of solar recharger. Whatever he takes, he'll have to be able to carry in his pack, which is already going to be heavy with his medic gear. Other than the weight issue, I am having problems finding a solar recharger that doesn't get wildly differing reviews as to basic quality. He'll have plenty of sun and few clouds, but it needs to be lightweight, effective, and robust. With price not being much of a concern, what would you suggest for accomplishing this? Advice on a small robust video camera would be appreciated as well."

Comments

Video Cam

[cc_pirate]

Make sure the video cam you get him is flash memory based. HD based ones will certainly die with the shock and vibration they will take in the field. I recently got Canon Vixia HF10, which is flash based, HD and works quite well. However, for something the field he may prefer something a bit more robust like a Sanyo Xacti or a Flip HD.

Re:Video Cam

[destuxor]

I'll throw this out there as a Soldier recently returned from Iraq: everything gets ruined by the sand. Everything. The CD drive in my computer doesn't read most store-bought DVD's and will not burn anything. Sand got into the lens on my camera and scratched the glass when the shutter closed. My buddies work computer over there made a disturbing squeak anytime the fan turned. Another friend zapped an Xbox with the 250VDC they use over there (yeah, that one was avoidable). We had to replace all the laptop batteries for one of our Forward Surgical Teams after the heat ruined their ability to keep charge. Bottom line: commercial electronics don't fare well in Iraq. The sand isn't like American sand - it's almost as fine as flour, not rough like sugar crystals. I haven't been to Afghanistan so I wouldn't know if it's better there but I wouldn't take anything expensive. Another idea I'll throw out there - see what you can do for making a transformer that will work with the HMMWV's 24VDC batteries. That's something he could share with everyone in the vehicle and it'd be fun, especially as a DIY project.

Wind up?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

How about a wind up power supply instead? I read that the US Military was actually considering procuring and deploying these to combat the "battery problem."

Oh, wind up power supplies are powered themselves by . . . MREs.

Bling? In Combat?

[actionbastard]

Anything that makes noise or is highly reflective won't go over very well in a combat scenario. What with giving away his unit's position and such. Get something decent that can be used back at a basecamp that he won't need to lug around. He'll appreciate your thoughtfulness when he comes home alive to show you his vids.

Re:"With price not being much of a concern..."

[Aggrajag]

And gives a really nice target for enemy snipers.

Re:"With price not being much of a concern..."

[Lokinator]

More survival-oriented, but.. Operation Helmet, Operation BoreSnake (defunct but offers useful information for troops), and comfort kits all help out. Check with your brother about his armor vest quality - this has been an issue in Iraq, though some reports report it as resolved. The solar kit will help, but recall that most solar panels *reflect* in sunlight (see: "Iraq", "Desert Climes") and reflections have an unfortunate tendency to *draw fire*. This is an un-good thing in a combat environment. Think this through.

Forget the charger...

[an.echte.trilingue]

As a former infantryman, I can tell you that you are really over thinking this. Rugged means more than just hard to break. It also means that it is a single piece (so he can't loose part of it) and that those pieces are easily replaceable.

Forget the charger, and get him something nice that runs on AAs. Lots of military equipment, such as the AN/PRC-14 night vision goggles or the little radios that squads carry around, run on AAs and so he is sure never to have a shortage. You literally have boxes of these things just floating around where ever you go. They aren't that heavy, they are virtually unbreakable, and he will have to carry some anyway. When I was in, guys bought electric shavers that ran on AAs expressly for this reason.

Besides, his unit will appreciate him not flipping a mirror out for all to see whenever he wants to listen to music.

Re:Pay

[freebase]

Semper Fi, Jarhead.

I got out in '93, mainly because I was tired of working two extra jobs plus keeping up with everything with the Corps, just to support my family. I was a Cpl at the time, living in base housing, with one kid, one car, one wife, and not much else. As I recall, my total gross from my military pay was right at 13K that year. I made almost that much working part time at McD's that year.

I got out and took a job with a defense contractor doing the same thing I was doing in the Corps (TMDE repair/calibration), and immediately was grossing more than 25K.

While I was in, everyone I knew below the rank of Gunny or SSgt, and had a family was on food stamps and WIC.

And for the other poster commenting on the tricked out cars and crap he saw on the air force base... Stop and think... There's not many places to spend money when you're deployed to a combat zone. I suspect most of those 'kids' you saw that you thought were right outta boot have been to the sandbox and back.

Also, for your further education, the military doesn't pay all your expenses as an enlisted man... at least not when I was in the Corps. No one drew a pay check for the entire 12 weeks of boot camp, but when we got our initial pay, we took that $900 check they gave us, and spent most of it paying for our uniforms, our PX bill, and our travel to take our 10 day leave. While I was in school at 29 Palms, I didn't get paid at all for three months because of a payroll screw up. When I finally got paid, I owed for uniforms, haircuts, etc. When I was in school at MCLB Albany, GA, I ended up spending more than an entire months take home on a complete new issue of uniforms just so I could pass the Junk on Bunk inspections to get weekend liberty and not spend all weekend picking up trash on the CG's detail, or doing something equally banal on orders designed to give me something to do to keep young Marines out of trouble.

I'll end the rant this has become by simply saying this... no matter how much members of the military get paid, especially young enlisted men and women, they've made the choice to put their lives on the line, to shed their blood, just so other people back home can continue to make statements and assumptions about things they truly don't and will never understand.

It is by the blood of these men and women, my brothers and sisters in arms, that this country, as bad as it may be at the moment, is still the place people such as yourself gladly call home.