As today's New York Times editorial "Not Supporting Our Troops" asks, how DO you explain to the thousands of Baghdad-bound troops that their life-saving armor is, uh, in the mail?
When I recently asked my Marine son, who's stationed in Fallujah, how well he's protected by his Humvee while out on convoy missions, he said, "Mom, you don't even want to know. We just do the best we can with what we've got."
Sadly, it seems like Donald Rumsfeld was right about something.
As The Times put it today:
It’s bad enough that these soldiers are being asked to risk their lives without President Bush demanding that Iraq’s leaders take any political risks that might give the military mission at least an outside chance of success. But according to an article in The Washington Post this week, at least some of the troops will be sent out in Humvees not yet equipped with FRAG Kit 5 armor. That’s an advanced version designed to reduce deaths from roadside bombs, which now account for about 70 percent of United States casualties in Iraq.
The more flexible materials used in the FRAG Kit 5 make it particularly helpful in containing the damage done by the especially deadly weapon the Bush administration is now most concerned about: those explosively formed penetrators that Washington accuses Iran of supplying to Shiite militias for use against American troops.
Older versions of Humvee armor are shattered by these penetrators, showering additional shrapnel in the direction of a Humvee’s occupants. The FRAG Kit 5 helps slow the incoming projectile and contains some of the shrapnel, giving the soldiers a better chance of survival.
Armor upgrades like this have become a feature of the Iraq war, as the Pentagon struggles to keep up with the constantly more powerful weapons and sophisticated tactics of the various militia and insurgent forces attacking American troops. But the Army, the National Guard and the Marine Corps have been caught constantly behind the curve.
Maddeningly, the Humvee armor upgrading project will not be completed until SUMMER. That's too little, too late for one of my son's battery mates who bled to death in a Humvee last month after a piece of shrapnel caught him in the neck.
Yet another instance of compassion and care for our troops from "the wonderful folks who brought you Iraq."