Hell, they still are carrying too much weight on that body. Stressful. hot and it sucks big time.

The Talibans carry less load and many of them just carry their guns wnd nothing else on their backs.

• US soldiers must be trained to carry those loads and let their bodies get used to heavier loads then the actually have to carry when on duty.
• There is no way to reduce the loads because what they are carrying now are just the basic needs for war and survival.
• Maybe they need not carry body armour since there is not much statistics showing that the body armour really give them protection.
• Another way of solving the problem is having others to carry their food and ammunitions while the soldiers just carry their guns and wear the body armour. Use robots, mules, donkeys or drones to carry for them.
• If nothing works, then don't send the soldiers to war. Ask them to stay at the base camps and have fun.

BUT THE BEST SOLUTION IS DON'T CREATE ANY WAR.

GOD Bless them..I put everything in my rack and i never went to iraq . The ideal of sleeping in the mud and eating bugs never appealed to me.

Maybe it is because i am a product of the 70's watching too much love boat on TV.

I did have to carry a p.250 pump around a little my back hurts justs thinking about that thing.

Funny article: they don't make mention of the fact that the full combat load out for the US soldier hasn't changed much in weight since 1942, which means either A.) American youth. more than ever, are whining pansies who aren't used to hard physical labor, or B.) The "journalists' who are reporting on this amplified the few cases that they could find to try to make this look like an increasingly terrible problem. Personally I'm pretty sure it's a combination of the two.

Did I like carrying a 70lb+ load in the Corps? Nope, hated it. I was also glad that I didn't have to also carry 2-3 bands of ammo for a .50cal MG also, or the 40lb baseplate for the morter that my uncle occasionally had to carry in Korea as well. War is hell for a number of really good reasons -

The Army has plans for new uniforms that are lighter , have intergrate body armor , use fiber optics to camoflage by blending into whatever terrain by relection , using computer graphics .