How is war addressed in Grunt?

War is a major theme in by Mary Roach. Gruntexplores the (often unusual) ways in which science is being applied in the military. Unlike most other investigations into military technology, Roach’s book focuses not on the technology that kills—guns, missiles, drones, and so on—but on the way technology is being used to save and improve the lives of soldiers. The nature of her investigation leads her to examine war on a smaller scale...

War is a major theme in by Mary Roach. Grunt explores the (often unusual) ways in which science is being applied in the military. Unlike most other investigations into military technology, Roach’s book focuses not on the technology that kills—guns, missiles, drones, and so on—but on the way technology is being used to save and improve the lives of soldiers. The nature of her investigation leads her to examine war on a smaller scale than we traditionally would. Most of the scientists she speaks to are working on projects that won’t help the US win a battle, but might save a soldier’s life or even just prevent them from sustaining an unnecessary injury. In her quest to learn more about how military science is actually being used, Roach often finds the humor and absurdity in some of the more bizarre pieces of technology. For example, she describes a “chicken gun” that fires frozen chickens at aircrafts to test whether their windshields are strong enough to withstand high-speed collisions with birds. However, Roach also finds some of these experiments very sobering. While she recognizes the value of learning from the bodies of deceased soldiers so that similar deaths may be avoided in the future, seeing the actual bodies of young fallen soldiers is difficult and makes Roach wonder whether war is ever truly justified in the first place.