Pentagon: Better Armor Would Have Saved Soldiers

[Felicia Katt]

Sweetie, did you read the Platform? What do you do, write on your ballot that you don't support that part of the agenda?? Cross your fingers when you pull the lever in the voting booth? You can claim to be open minded all you like, but your vote is your vote. A vote for Bush was a vote against gay rights. Who can you say you voted for recently that supports this alternative lifestyle?

Other than not being particularly open to people who vote for those who would deny me basic fundamental civil rights, or who would deny women reproductive freedom, how am I closed minded? As far as being the better person, all I have done is attack your position, not you as a person. If you feel attacked or inferior, its because of the position you have taken, not anything I said against you or about you.

To put it all into some persepective, you are feeling frustrated and misunderstood and vilified and I hope you can understand why your admissions might cause you to face some rejection here. Now imagine you are treated that way everywhere, everyday for no reason. How open and good are you going to be when someone who helps keep you down shows up?

FK

[Felicia Katt]

Jesus H. Chist. The libs really obfuscated this thread.

For once I agree, the thread has unravelled, so without meaning to needle anyone, lets pin down some facts.

Armor only costs 1500 per soldier but not every solider is being provided with it. Enhancements to existing armor that cost only a few hundred dollars could have prevented 80 per cent of Marine deaths but were not funded. Humvees are not adequately armored and ones that are are only trickling into Iraq because the Pentagon waited 2 years before ordering more heavily armored vehicles. In April 2004, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, criticized the Army's efforts to get more armored vehicles or armor kits to Iraq, telling Army officials they were afflicted by a "case of the slows." One combat death in four occurs to personnel in a Humvee. Without supplies, soliders are using sandbags and scrap metal to try to armour their vehicles on their own.

"There was a reluctance on the part of the Pentagon to take it seriously and get as many of these vehicles as quickly as possible," Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, says. "It was almost as if they were in a defensive posture, that to make any changes or to acknowledge any shortcomings would somehow be an acknowledgment that the planning had not been perfect.

A stitch in time saves 9. Too bad this Administration is apparently more concerned with saving face than lives.

FK

[BlackAdder]

I think you're not getting it. I don't support all of that agenda. How many times do I have to say that?

Like it or not, your supporting ALL of it by voting for it dumbass......No, I really think its YOU who is not getting it...


Thats like saying hey, I believe in X number of values that said administration supports, but those other X things well...there fucked up.....But fuck it, ill vote for them anyway..


Get bent Mr. Freethinker.

[Felicia Katt]

Here is something on topic. The US is not letting our troops in Iraq use armor they had to purchaced themselves!!! Soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionI...30&htmlId=4514

Its bad enough that thet aren't being given the tools they need to survive, but to refuse to let them supply those tools for themselves is pretty shameful. If this is being done to shield the army or the administration from criticism, its more than shameful, its criminal.

FK

[chefmike]

Besides the armor, we're running out of soldiers...

A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq By The Associated Press
Mon Jan 23, 8:10 PM ET

As of Monday, Jan. 23, 2006, at least 2,231 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,751 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include six military civilians.

more-

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060124/...N5bnN1YmNhdA--

Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.

"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an interview.

more here-

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/army_brea...kxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Jamie Michelle]

Get ready to be called a Left Wing, Liberal fanatic - you unamerican communist.

Why don't you try supporting our troops????

Those troops are aggressively invading a country. Going by the natural rights held by all humans, they deserve to get shot and killed for their aggression. The proper thing to do is to not invade other countries, then we wouldn't have to worry about them being killed over there. But being that they are over there, the Iraqis have every bit as much right to kill said invaders as Americans would to kill Iraqi invaders.

[KD]

What a dumb fucking article. Would the Armor save your arms and legs?

KD

[chefmike]

Wounded Soldier Gets a Bill from the Army
Paul Reickhoff

Body armor and pay problems continue to be an issue for our Troops in the field and our wounded Veterans back home. For more, read this piece from Michael John Hurst, a member of IAVA who was comissioned to conduct a study into pay problems for wounded soldiers:

Although the sky is the limit when it comes to funding government contractors, the Pentagon always manages to get its money's worth out of the troops.

Eddie Rebrook learned that lesson the hard way - after getting a $700 bill to pay for the body armor that was destroyed in an IED attack that left him severely wounded.

To read the full story, Click Here.

When pressed by Sen. Robert Byrd, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker said that the story was unusual. But, Gen. Schoomaker promised Byrd to "correct it if there's any truth to it." Apparently, Gen. Schoomaker isn't a regular viewer of ABC's Nightline. On last Tuesday's episode, the Army admitted that 5,549 soldiers had payroll problems after being evacuated from Iraq for medical reasons.

Last week, the Chief of Staff did find time to join the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in firing off an admonishment to the Washington Post for its depiction of a wounded soldier in a political cartoon that was critical of Sec. Rumsfeld.

We can only hope that our nation's leaders will soon stop playing political games with cartoon soldiers and start making sure the proper systems are in place to care for the real ones.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-r...i_b_15305.html