Up Your Armor II

Greetings from Iraq! First off to the millions of you who are concerned, rest assured, as I write this, my personal armor is within arm's reach.

Yesterday we noted this general truism:

"The U.S. military has always been perfectly trained and equipped to win the last war".

And the specific Murphy's law that shows why it doesn't matter anyway:

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

And the relationship of these to the "armor" issue, through this third fact that overwhelms them both:

"So for now, at least, enough of a shred of American "can-do" attitude and perseverance survives to ensure that the truism stated above remains only a minor inconvenience."

Today I find Steve Hayward illustrating the concept in The Corner:

The news yesterday of soldiers challenging Rumsfeld about the lack of armor, spare parts, etc, brought back to mind many of my father's WWII stories, where, as a long-range reconnaisance and sub-hunting Navy pilot in the South Pacific starting in 1942, spare parts were in such short supply that he routinely looked for downed planes they could scrounge spare parts from, sometimes even behind enemy lines in New Ginuea. Nobody complained about it; they just got by. Actually, he got a commendation for ingenuity; maybe these folks in Kuwait should get a similar commendation.

Also, because his squadron had to fly missions of up to 30 hours, flying from northern Australia as far as the Chinese coast to track Japanese fleet movements, they often removed much of the heavy armor on the belly of their planes to extend their fuel range, with the obvious trade off of higher risk. Oh, his entire sqaudron also got their tours extended more than once.

But of course that's different, somehow...

Then here's another comment from the same Tennessee Guard unit as the young Specialist who quizzed the Secretary of Defense, as quoted by the very reporter who fed him that question:

"They (insurgents) are trying to attack weak convoys, not strong convoys," said Staff Sgt. Brian Culberson, 28, of Cleveland, Tenn.

He said soldiers scrounging for extra armor are not unique to this war. He recently saw a magazine article about units in Vietnam scavenging steel for their vehicles.

"They had the same problem with convoys getting hit with guerrilla warfare," Sgt. Culberson said. "The odds of us getting hit are pretty slim, but it is still an odd."

Scrounging is a time honored military tradition. You're not handed everything you need, and certainly nowhere near everything you want. (And with time comes additional needs - see Murphy's law). Overcoming shortages can be characterized as ingenuity on the part of the individual or failure on the part of the government. Sound familiar? Certainly the military doesn't have propriety of the concept.

There is an element of the victimization in the current lefty portrayal of this issue. People shouldn't have to do what the government should do for them! Small wonder that entitlement is the page they've chosen from their rather limited playbook on this one.

Having noted all that, I say without hesitation or qualification that yes, the government should do everything possible to assure as much protective gear gets to those of us in harm's way as is possible. Along with lethal offensive gear that tends to reduce threat too. Oh, and food, clothing, fuel, spare parts, communications systems, mail...

But I digress. Let's stick with armor for a moment. It's one of the issues that has seen phenomenal improvement over the past couple of years. Anyone recall seeing pictures of troops in body armor prior to OIF? Not likely - it wasn't in widespread use.

Likewise a second "defensive" area of rapid progress has been medical care. Combat units include "combat lifesavers", all troops get training in "self aid and buddy care", fully trained medics are near by and near-state-of-the-art facilities are found increasingly closer to the battlefields. Larger facilities are available in theater, airlift is readily available, and a system exists to get those who need it to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany or stateside hospitals in rapid time - sometimes measured in hours rather than days.

Good old American ingenuity in action! And what has this "can-do attitude and American Know how" brought us, on the battlefield and in the media? The combination of improved personal armor and medical care has resulted in a greater percentage of survivors of wounds, as the Washington Post notes in a story headlined U.S. Combat Fatality Rate Lowest Ever:

Technology and Surgical Care at the Front Lines Is Credited With Saving Lives

Ten percent of soldiers injured in Iraq have died from their war wounds, the lowest casualty fatality rate ever, thanks in large part to technological advances and the deployment of surgical SWAT teams at the front lines, an analysis to be published today has found.

There's an unfortunate tradeoff, however:

But the remarkable lifesaving rate has come at the enormous cost of creating a generation of severely wounded young veterans and a severe shortage of military surgeons, wrote Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

But witness the "no win" situation that the some in the press engineer, as evidenced in the Boston Globe's treatment of the same story:

Amputation Rate For US Troops Twice That Of Past Wars

Doctors cite need for prosthetics as more lives saved

US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data giving the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.

The data are the grisly flip side of improvements in battlefield medicine that have saved many combatants who would have died in the past: Only 1 in 10 US troops injured in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in US history.

But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks. More than half of those injured sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.

Bottom line: for some the only thing worse than troops in danger for lack of armor is troops who survived because of armor.

Guess we'll just have to pack up and go home.