In 2007, the Senator Joe Biden was responsible for getting Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for our troops in Iraq. You can read about it in this 23 year old article from defense-aerospace magazine.
Biden chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and wrote an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Bill to spent 23.6 billion dollars to to replace its humvees with MRAPS.
This was essential because road-side bombs were responsible for 70% of the casualties in Iraq and MRAPS were needed to protect the troops.
This was a fight Biden had long been having with Gates, the Secretary of Defense at the time, who didn’t want to put all that funding for the MRAPs.
Biden said “When our commanders in the field tell us that these Mine Resistant Vehicles will reduce casualties by sixty-seven to eighty percent, I cannot understand why the Administration’s wartime budget request falls far below the stated needs of our folks on the ground. Providing our troops with the best possible protection should be a shared top priority. When American lives and limbs are on the line, giving anything less that 100% is not enough. As long as we have a single soldier on the front lines in Iraq, or anywhere else, it is this country’s most sacred responsibility to protect them,”
Biden spent six months arguing about this with the Bush administration, writing this amendment, and rustling up support from both sides of the aisle so he could get it passed. In the end, he was able to get Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Robert Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) to co-sponsor his amendment, increasing the likelihood that it would pass (which it did).
It passed and it saved lives.
Check out this amazing Biden ad to hear about it from a soldier on the ground:
Joe Biden put the safety of our troops first because he sees protecting the brave men and women who serve our county as our greatest obligation.
Joe Biden will be a great president.
This is Day 80 in my series 100 Days of Loving Joe Biden
Did you miss any of the 100 days? Here are links for all of them:
- Day 63: Biden ran his very first campaign in 1972 on the issues that are still central to us today -- voting rights, civil rights, crime, clean water and air, pension protection, and health care.
- Day 64: Biden has worked for campaign finance reform for his whole career. He can bring real change as president.
- Day 65: Biden surrounds himself with a diverse group of advisors and plans to do so in the White House as well. Representation matters.
- Day 66: Biden has a great plan for dealing with Iran
- Day 67: Biden has an aggressive plan to fight climate change
- Day 68: Even when you disagree with Biden, you will know that his heart is in the right place.
- Day 69: Biden loved the Biden/Obama memes which shows us more evidence of the person Joe is — someone fun, who can laugh at himself, and who values his friendship with another man enough to want to enjoy reminders of that bond.
- Day 70: Biden is running for president for the right reasons. Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” response to Charlottesville, motivated him to run. Biden is running for president because he loves our country too much to stand on the sidelines and not do all he can to save it
- Day 71: Joe Biden doesn't hold personal grudges. He has the maturity to see that every slight or misstep is not about him and that gives him the ability to focus on what really needs to be done for the good of the country.
- Day 72: Biden believes in democracy. Throughout his 40 years of public service, he has repeatedly shown that he sees elected office as a sacred trust where you work to make people’s lives better. He will fight like hell for that now, after November 3rd, and after his inauguration as our 46th president.
- Day 73: Joe has championed funding and application of basic and applied science for his entire career.
- Day 74: Biden has a great plan for Puerto Rico
- Day 75: Biden is not an elitist
- Day 76: Biden will nominate great justices
- Day 77: Biden is just the right mix of pragmatic and idealistic
- Day 78: Biden supports the rights of transgender people
- Day 79: Biden won’t have anyone from the fossil fuel industry (or any lobbyists) on his transition team