The most important piece of equipment in the field in this hot, dusty desert is not bullets, Kevlar armor or the soldier's constant companion, the M-16 rifle.

Instead, each of the nearly 5,000 soldiers training for combat in Iraq at this Army base on the edge of Death Valley wears a small pack on their back with a tube that feeds them a steady stream of water.

It's called a Camelbak and it is always filled. Conversations slow to a stutter, occasionally, as soldiers reach up, draw a sip of water, then finish their words.

Dehydration has accounted for four casualties so far at this base as members of the Utah National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 222nd Field Artillery train for combat in Iraq, where summer temperatures can top 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Each soldier must drink three quarts of water before breakfast, then between 10 a.m. and noon they must drink a full canteen (another quart) in front of their supervisor," said Capt. Alfred Smith, a public information officer attached to the brigade. "Then, between 2 and 4 p.m., they have to drink another canteen."

It's part of the brigade's forced-hydration plan to keep the Army on its feet.

"If we even spot one sign of heat illness, we force liquid into them," said Maj. Sterling McMurrin.

If a soldier is not sweating or eliminating water from their system, they are probably not drinking enough, said Lt. Bryan Hofheins, a pediatric physician's assistant from St. George.

Hofheins enlisted in the Guard shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Partly, he said, because it was a way to help pay off medical school bills. Mostly, however, it was a sense of patriotism.

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She was less than half a mile from completing the 2.5 mile run, which is known in basic military training circles as the Airmen's Run-- a graduation requirement. She must pass a physical readiness running re-evaluation.

"How many canteens of water did you drink yesterday? Did you hydrate properly?" Maj. C.J. Johnson says this is a familar scene and dehyration injuries play out in greater frequency as the hot, humid summer months approach South Texas and BMT. Major Johnson said he became alarmed about the number of dehydration injuries being suffered by 323rd TRS Trainees and declared war on what he sees as a preventable problem. He learned that trainees who became dehydrated were not following their prescribed hydration schedule and were only drinking one or two canteens of water a day for several days at a time, "nearly eieght to nine canteens shy of their daily target intake".

Many trainees complain about the plastic taste of water coming out of the canteens. The major arrived to command the 323rd in December from the Pentagon's Joint Staff, where he routinely witnessed Marines and Soldiers running while wearing backpack mounted hydration systems. These hydration systems "CamelBaks" with their specially designed flow tubes, allowed users to sip water on demand while excercising. GIven the hydration challenges he determined his trainees would have fewer hydration injuries, which can be very serious if they were issued these personal hydration systems -- the same ones utilized by Airmen, Soldiers and Marines deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Major Johnson sees the switch to CamelBak as "a means to respond to the Chief's and Secretary's challenge to transform the way we do things at BMT to make our Airmen better fit to fight to fight as they support increasing deployment taskings".