InsideClimate News and NBC News spent the past nine months probing the threat that rising heat poses to U.S. military personnel and, by extension, the nation’s national security.
We found a series of preventable heat deaths and a surge in cases of heat illnesses. Overall, we discovered an uneven response to a growing problem as the military wrestles with how to train in increasingly sweltering conditions. (Here is a map showing the bases with the most heat injuries.)
The response to our investigation so far has been overwhelming, particularly in its detailed description of tragic losses during training exercises — an 18-year-old cadet in his first week at West Point, an Iraq combat veteran and father of five, a young lieutenant on his first day training to become an Army Ranger.
We want to tell your stories, too. Have you or people close to you suffered heat illnesses while serving in the military? Was their health impacted long term? Was their military career affected? Can you help provide a more complete picture of the military’s heat problem?
To share your experience with heat illness, fill out the form below.
We take your privacy seriously and will not publish your name or any information you share without your permission. If you prefer to get in touch with us confidentially via email, please contact ICN reporter David Hasemyer at [email protected], or write to him at 16 Court Street, Suite 2307, Brooklyn, NY 11241
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
David Hasemyer
Reporter, San Diego
Inside Climate News reporter David Hasemyer is from the red rock country of Southeastern Utah where he grew up and learned to appreciate the importance responsible stewardship of the environment. He is co-author of the Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and co-authored the 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist series “Exxon: The Road Not Taken.” Prior to joining ICN, Hasemyer had an award-wining tenure at The San Diego Union-Tribune as an investigative reporter. Hasemyer’s newspaper work has been recognized by the Associated Press, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He also has been a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice and Human Rights. PGP key: http://ow.ly/iEHN3089Gqg
