The Holes in the Armor

All of that talk about the shortages in the Army leaving soliders without appropriate armor- soldiers having to pick scrap metal out of trash heaps to weld to their trucks as armor- soldiers ordering body armor online and having it shipped over seas to Iraq because the Army wouldn't provide it to them...

All of that we knew to be true, and didn't want to believe. Could our own armed services be so callous as to send our troops to a war without even the foresight to adequately protect them?

Yes.

Better body armor could have prevented or limited about 80 percent of fatal torso wounds suffered by Marines killed in Iraq, a report by U.S. military medical experts obtained on Friday said.

The report, conducted for the Marine Corps by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and not released to the public, examined the cases of Marines fatally wounded from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2005, and found weaknesses in the torso protective gear.

Bullets or shrapnel hit the Marines' shoulders, the sides of their torsos or other areas not fully covered by ceramic plates contained in the body armor in at least 74 of 93 fatal wounds examined in the study.

Comforting. And despite the Veep's claims of "last-throws" the insurgency is ceaselessly violent- yesterday they posted a terribly bloody day, killing 11 US soliders. I'd think that at we'd be demanding, at least, for The Administration to provide adequate protection for the soldiers they've put directly into harm's way to achieve whatever it is they're seeking.