Fatigue Management

Chapter Five
Fatigue on Operations
The lack of sleep I feel now, at eleven o'clock in the morning,
is a grain of sand compared to the mountain that will
tower over me when dawn breaks tomorrow. Past dawns
I've flown through come forward in memory to warn me
what torture the desire for sleep can be... How wonderful it
would be if this really were a dream, and I could lie down
on a cloud's soft, fluffy quilt and sleep. I've never wanted
anything so much ... I'd pay any price - except life itself. But
life itself is the price.
You can't stay switched on for that
period of time. If you're not having
contact, you're not finding regular
sign of the enemy and everyone
starts getting blasé. You start
getting a bit too casual. You start
making a little bit more noise at
night. When you're patrolling
you're not as alert. A patrol of three
weeks means you can keep your
mind on the job the whole time. Six
weeks - with the exhaustion, when
you're patrolling in jungle all day,
it's very debilitating. You're
sweating, it's a lot of physical work;
you're not having your sleep. You're
not having what you would call a
first-class menu with green
vegetables and all the stuff you
need for stamina. During nights,
you're laying awake a lot.
Operating in the rain - the rain
keeps you awake and you're out on sentry and you have got
to come back and try to get sleep. You're operating on
exhaustion a fair bit and trying to go that long on six
weeks, means that you do start to lose your sharp edge. And
when you start to lose your sharp edge, then you can start
losing blokes.
Private Wally Burford
quoted in Gary McKay's
Delta Four: Australian Riflemen in Vietnam, 1996
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