American soldiers to get new body armour - at last

[Say_What]

This was reported on Democracy Now a few days aqo.

Soldier's parents have been buying body armour because the army sends these soldiers to the front without it... I hear they also have to pay for stuff at Walter Reed Hosptal. Unf*ck'nreal!

<clips>

The US army has promised to rush new body armour to Iraq by the end of this month after it emerged that tens of thousands of soldiers were sent to the front without the life-saving protective jackets.

Parents of some of the troops have resorted to buying the jackets with their bullet-stopping ceramic inserts themselves and posting them to Iraq. The failure to equip ordinary soldiers properly has caused fury in Congress, where the shortfall in body armour has been contrasted with the generous allocations to other projects in this year's $379bn defence budget.

Most national guard troops and reservists deployed in Iraq have been sent with only Vietnam-era flak jackets that are much less effective in stopping shrapnel and bullets.

The army's new Interceptor vests are lighter, and their ceramic plates can stop bullets from high-velocity assault rifles at short range, as well as bomb shrapnel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1100467,00.html

[54anickel]

1. About friggin time!

"I was told by the Pentagon it was not treated as a priority item," he added. "It does appear that a number of soldiers died by wounds to the central body, so there does seem to be a strong likelihood that we could have saved lives if we had sent enough body armour. I'm mystified by the entire failure."


MHO is that the Pentagon didn't want surviors collecting long-term disability with missing limbs. There have been reports that the protection was saving the lives that would have otherwise been lost, bad news is the extremities are not protected.
Another purely financial based decision.:cry:

[Frangible]

3. WTF??????

Body armor reduces causulties by 80% to small arms fire and 50% to explosives and it's "not a priority item"?

What the fuck, for 1 trillion dollars they should do better than that.

[sistersofmercy]

2. It's about time and I glad to see the soldiers are getting the body

armor they need and deserve! Long overdue!
I swear Rove monitors this site!

[lebkuchen]

4. Is this the same as "help is on the way?"

I'll believe it when I see it.

[madddog]

5. The Israelis have the same problem

I was just approached by an Israeli friend to try and raise $16K to buy some of the ceramic vests for a group of parents who want to give them to their kids there.

I don't think there is an army out there that has deployed these vests to everyone yet.