The first time I heard someone use the phrase “Sock Water”, I did not have a vision of a cool refreshing drink.  The image of someone using their sock as a crude form of water purification came to mind.  Drinking a liquid after it had been strained through a sock that I had worn for the past week was not a motivating thought.

 

At the beginning of the Iraq war, ice was a commodity that was worth its weight in gold to soldiers.  Occasionally, it could be purchased from local Iraqi venders.  It was possible to purchase 10 blocks of ice the size of railroad ties for $20 dollars.  This opportunity was soon forbidden because the quality of water going into the ice contained bacteria that no one would want to ingest knowingly. The enemy soon figured out how to insert explosives into the large blocks of ice. 

 

Necessity is the mother of all invention and gave birth to the idea of sock water.  The majority of our water came in 1 liter plastic bottles.  We would put the bottle of water in one of our socks and then douse the sock with water.  We would then tie the sock with the bottle of water in it to a mirror on our Humvee.  While driving, the evaporation of the water from the wet sock kept a bottle quite cool. The key was to always make sure the sock stayed wet and that the knot was secure.  It was always a sad moment when a bottle of water would fall off of your vehicle due to a poorly tied knot.  It would take another two hours to cool off a new bottle of water. 

 

A cool bottle of sock water always tasted good when the air temperature was well above the 120 degree range.  This simple technique saved many soldiers from the misery of heat exhaustion or heat stroke during the first summer in Iraq.