The US military procurement system does not normally work in favor of an individual soldier who has a good idea. To fund, build, and field a new training device requires years of navigation through countless layers of the defense establishment bureaucracy. This paper describes the successful efforts of a young officer who, armed with exceptional persistence and an innovative spirit, took a great idea from a back-of-the-napkin concept to operational testing in less than seven months. The story of the Humvee Egress Assistance Trainer, or HEAT, is an extraordinary tale of a military officer's quest to save the lives of soldiers. The impact of the HEAT fielding is measurable: Military vehicle rollovers and associated fatalities in combat each dropped by more than 60% in the two years following the fielding of the Humvee rollover trainer.
The United States Army had a serious problem and no one quite knew what to do about it. It was 2005 and the Army's High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle, the ubiquitous Humvee, was rolling over at an alarming rate during combat operations in Iraq. The problem confounded commanders, senior non-commissioned officers and military safety professionals: How to stop the rollovers or – at a minimum – make the events survivable. Chief Warrant Officer Three (CW3) Rik Cox had an idea, one that had been discussed by various military leaders and safety personnel, but had never been aggressively pursued. What if vehicle occupants could experience a realistic rollover simulation in training? Vehicle occupants could know exactly how to react. The driver and gunner could be trained to recognize the feel of the 25º angle at which the top-heavy Uparmored Humvee tips over. In addition, the occupants would recognize the value of using seatbelts, even in combat.
Cox was the lowest ranking officer in the US Army's Forces Command (FORSCOM) Safety Division, an office of military safety professionals 6,700 miles from the sands of Iraq. As the man who collected and analyzed the daily casualty reports, Cox saw the same accident causation entry over and over again: Humvee Rollover. The accompanying injury descriptions were predictable: Fatal Head Injury, Broken Back, Paralysis From Broken Neck. Gunners perched in the roof-mounted turrets had another repetitive entry: Killed When Thrown From Vehicle. Another tragic fatality cause: Drowned When Trapped In Overturned Submerged Vehicle. Rik Cox was a man with a mission. He was going to save lives by preventing rollovers.
Ground vehicle simulation training had never advanced past the "good idea" stage; however he was going to take the lead in the effort to develop a training device. He was unaware at the time the road ahead would prove extremely difficult, taxing his considerable resolve and determination. Cox was an officer in the US Army Reserve and a member of the FORSCOM Safety Division's Army Safety Augmentation Detachment (ASAD). Since 9/11, the ASAD, a 110-person organization comprised of trained Ground and Aviation Safety Officers, had mobilized and deployed sixty officers and non-commissioned officers.
