The overall physical demand that Iraq has is pretty amazing. It’s 130 degrees, and the soldiers are carrying about 100 pounds of extra gear. It’s a pretty rigorous schedule and routine for them.

Nichols emphasizes the extreme bodily strain placed on U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, translating abstract notions of “service” into concrete, measurable hardships: lethal heat, heavy loads, and an unrelenting routine. By foregrounding temperature and weight, he frames military labor as endurance work, inviting civilian listeners to recognize the gap between everyday comfort and combat-zone conditions. The remark also functions as a corrective to romanticized or purely strategic discussions of war, shifting attention to the lived, physical cost borne by individual soldiers. Implicitly, it carries an ethical appeal for respect, support, and sober awareness of what deployment demands.