20 Feb Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime for Body Armor?
Honestly, it’s things like this that explain why I sometimes fail to choose my words carefully when I’m criticizing the Bush Administration. From the Sparta Independent, courtesy of Americablog:
To the Editor:
I have a son going to Iraq this summer. I was able to afford to buy state-of-the-art body armor for his protection. Unfortunately there are many parents that are not able to afford this body armor.
My son’s outfit has 24 Marines. Two parents, including myself, have purchased this armor. Five others have been sponsored. The families of all the Marines in the unit have banded together to raise the additional money for the other 17 Marines.
The military has body armor available, but it’s heavy and not state-of-the-art. There is a company called Pinnacle Armor, out of California, that sells armor called Dragon Skin. This is what we have chosen for our sons. We need to raise $102,000 to outfit these 17 Marines. It’s approximately $6000 per Marine.
Any and all donations are welcome.
For more information please call _________ at _________.
For a disturbing story about the substandard body armor the government has been purchasing, see here.
While I’m aware the military gives you considerable latitude on outfitting yourself for combat, I’m surprised they let soliders use different body armor than the standard issue. After all, you can’t just purchase whatever firearm you’d prefer to use and head to theatre.
That’s true Matthew, but at the same time the military doesn’t seem to have any problem buying weapons for their soldiers.
I think you should do more research before posting – Dragonskin is not permitted to be used because it failed military tests.
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As an active duty Marine MSgt I feel I can comment on this issue. While I haven’t been to Iraq I was in Afghanistan and wore the same body armor that the troops deployed to Iraq wear. The current body armor, while not as new or as light as Dragon Skin, is sufficient. You have to realize that the Marine Corps specifically and the military at large try to provide the best armor that it possibly can while taking into consideration cost and availability.
Being brand new, I seriously doubt that Dragon Skin can produce the quantities that would be needed to outfit all of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan let alone all of the ground forces in the U.S. military.
According to your story above it cost $102,000 to outfit 17 Marines. We would need to buy 178,000 sets in the appropriate sizes in order to give one to each Marine. Now we would need to also buy a quantity (not sure how many) extra to have on hand to replace lost or disfunctional sets. This is just the active duty Marine Corps, the 40,000 reserves would need to be outfitted as well. We haven’t even talked about the 1 million soldiers in the Army, Army Reserves, and National Guard.
As I stated earlier I’ve worn the current body armor and it is heavy but substantially more protective than the old Flak Jackets we used to wear. Dragon Skin would be great. I would love see the Government cough up the money for it but I’m not holding my breath. I suspect that the Government probably has purchased some Dragon Skin vests for at least the some or our special ops people.
I hope for the safety of these Marines, their family bought the right kind of vests. The issue type IBA (individual body armor) vests contain pockets for ballistic plates to be inserted. The current standard in theater is for the anti-armor piercing round plates. Our previous vests did great until the enemy figured out to start shooting at us with armor piercing rounds. Once we figured out what was going on we adapted and went to the thicker (and heavier) plates. I also hope that the families bought the accessories for the vests – the throat protector and crotch protector – which are issued to every military member in theater. In any event, even Dragon Skin won’t automatically protect you from IEDs which are the most likely threat though it may help. You can’t wear enough armor to help you if one goes off directly under your vehicle.
On a related note. I hear an awful lot of complaining about the “substandard” armor being given to the troops. What a lot of people don’t understand is that there is only so much armor you can wear and still do your job. A lot of times being able to move quickly will save your life a lot better than body armor ever will. The days of knights are long gone. Body armor (helmet and vest with attachments) currently makes up about 25 to 30 pounds of the weight hanging off a soldier or Marine’s body. Then you have to throw on a rifle, pack that weighs anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds (depending on mission requirements) and other specialized gear. Thinking back, its not even so much the weight as it is how constricting all that gear is.
I’m glad that everyone would like to see us have the best possible protection available but due to the current state of technology it just isn’t practical. We have very good gear now and I believe that as the technology improves the government will get better gear.
In short I’m all for getting more body just as long as someone else carries it.