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Thursday, December 4, 2003
Letters to the editor for Sunday, November 30, 2003
Stars and Stripes
European and Mideast editions
(EDITOR’S NOTE: These are the letters that appeared in each edition of Stripes on this publication date. Click here to jump ahead to the Pacific edition letters)
Body armor/Humvees
I’m serving in Kosovo. Almost all the members of my task force and I have been issued Interceptor Body Armor with ballistic plates. We received these vests shortly after arriving in Kosovo back in July.
There’s little to no threat to any of us here compared to the troops in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Certainly there always exists the possibility of something happening here. But in Iraq it’s not simply a possibility. Several times a day, day after day, the need for this body armor is demonstrated. With every incident that occurs in Iraq in which a soldier is lost due to substandard body armor, the other soldiers and I who have the armor but don’t need it have to live with the guilt of their loss.
I’m personally embarrassed to even have the Interceptor vest. The sad truth is that we rarely wear the vests. They’re seen as one more piece of useless equipment that soldiers are forced to tote along with them on patrols. A lot of us are often left to wonder how the U.S. military can be so incompetent and so seemingly brainless. How was something like this allowed to happen? What command personnel would submit a request at this time for this level of armor for the troops in Kosovo? Moreover, what kind of person would even knowingly consider approving such a request? It would also be interesting to know when this request was submitted. Was it submitted years ago when the need for such armor in the Balkans may have been necessary? Is the paperwork trail so long, redundant and defeating that it’s possible this request is in fact several years old? If that’s the case, is the military so inept that it couldn’t stop the ball from rolling? Either way, the military has failed its fighting soldiers.
In addition to the body armor, I also take issue with the “up-armored” Humvees. We arrived to a full complement of these vehicles. Shortly afterward, we were told the vehicles would be shipped to Iraq. Finally, something right was going to happen. But we’re now well into our fourth month in country, and there are still “up- armored” Humvees here in Kosovo. To my knowledge it’s a slow process and few have been shipped. I’d venture to say that even fewer, if any at all, have found their way to the soldiers in Iraq. I’m certain the KFOR command and its soldiers would gladly hand deliver these vests and vehicles today if it were only that easy.
The U.S. military will defend its time-consuming incompetence by saying the vehicles first have to be overhauled and painted before they can be delivered. And of course let’s not forget the paperwork. While this is certainly true, one could make the sarcastic argument that MAACO could get it done in a day.
Is the U.S. military so crippled by its enslaving obsession with paperwork, tracking and accountability of supplies and equipment that it doesn’t see what’s happening, or is it simply turning a blind eye? I consider it to be a combination of both. What do readers think?
Spc. Michael Young
Kosovo