I am puzzled by the tone of the article that says the hummvees are armored. If the hummvees were not armored until all of the bad press here in the states, then was that a false report? If the hummvees have been reworked with armor, isn't it because people like Wilson were complaining? Apparently the hummvees WERE NOT armored when many of them were under fire. If a tenant complained about a landlord because half the building burned due to no fire detectors, would you use that tone and say "The landlor has now put fire detectors in every apartment but 20. So that is a false report." I'm sorry but I'm puzzled. Who is the bad guy here, and why?

Powerline has an item today about this, including a link to a DefenseLink transcript of a press briefing. My take is that the up-armoring project has been ongoing for some time, and that the unit Spc Wilson belongs to (or will be joining) is complete or almost so.
I remember Ollie North reporting some months ago from Iraq and talking about the additional armoring on the humvees. He and the Marine team he was embedded with survived an IED which exploded very close to them due to the extra armoring - he was very impressed.

When my unit rolled North-allegedly we were all "armored up". But this is sort of impossible. They didn't have 5-Ton truck Up Armor kits then.

Chalks roll North with mixes of vehicles. Our Infantry Humvees were armored. The Signal Humvees from the another Company weren't. Some-had hillbilly armor-does that count?!? Is the General counting it here?!?

Furthermore-there are almost NO 5-Ton Up Armor packages now.

Were the few out there used only on the 278? Or do they have no 5-Tons? I would find that hard to believe.

As I sit with my Squadmates ...who are amazingly well prepared and equipped-I hope Rumsfield will be around for awhile.

But,I really doubt anyone will be dropping Wilson soon. General Speakes on the other hand....

Max

Thank heavens for guys like Spc. Wilson. If the armour was there already, as it should have been before leaving the manufactory, the question would have been unnecessary.I believe he saved many lives.

Max - you have a very good point. The information I looked at was for the Humvees only.

Greyhawk,

You wrote: "...he may soon be a sorry son of a bitch."

Yes, that's true. The officers in Wilson's chain of command may turn out to be vindictive little shits, as officers can often be, but that soldier had every right to ask the question he did. He knew damn well what he was doing, whether he got the idea from a journalist or not. It was a tough question, he wanted to put Rumsfeld on the spot, and in any case it's a question that Rumsfeld damn sure should have had a good answer for when he gives an open mic to citizen-soldiers.

The truth is, however, that Rumsfeld did have a good answer. This is the press's fault, not the soldier's, and not the military's.

f

Observer,
read link again.

All the criticism of Rumsfeld comments have been of the maliciously distorted reports of the comments rather than of the complete comments. Like the later shit about signatures, there is no search for truth there. All this concern for the well being of the military from a party that has done everything in their power the past 30 years to divert military budgets to welfare schemes and to demean the profession of arms is just a bit rancid.

Walter,

That's so true. I only wish more people would read what Rumsfeld actually said. He handled the question just fine. What did you think of the his opinion piece in USAToday?

f

I don't see why it makes a difference if Wilson's unit was "up-armored" at the time he asked the question. I didn't see that his questions specifically referred to his unit.

Besides which, naturally his unit would finished with up-armoring if they had spent all that time scavenging junk-yards.

The armor problem is hardly new. I remember reading months ago about a Midwestern town council working with a local steel factory to provide and pay for up-armoring vehicles for their own local National Guard unit.

There also wasn't anything Wilson said that wasn't true. If it was so out of line then why was it so warmly received by the rest of the soldiers there and afterwords? It's true that there may be only about 20 percent of HMMV's that may need armor. But there are over 80 percent of our trucks that they know need armor that don't have it. And by "they" I'm referring to official Pentagon numbers. It must take real courage to drive a fuel truck in one of these convoys.

Perhaps you should step back a few paces and try viewing the world out of something other than the perspective of thinking that everything is a liberal media plot out to bring down the military and end civilization as we know it. There's a faint possibility that you may have become somewhat biased and reactionary and have developed a tendency to jump to conclusions.

And I hate to be truly heretical, and completely mess up your sense of reality, but you also might want to consider that the reporter that helped Wilson with his questions (and tried to get him to tone them down) might not be evil incarnate.

We are after all talking about an embedded from Chattanooga. That's not exactly New York City. Smaller press often feel much more connected to where they live than big city reporters. He actually thought in some respects that he was helping to save some of his hometown soldiers lives.

What's funny about the blogs you link to is that in order to prove that there is a vast nefarious liberal media plot apparently underfoot they all quote other media or press officials as evidence.

That's as if Dan Rather said the sky was blue and you chose not to believe it because you had heard that Peter Jennings said it was yellow. Excuse me but... Huh?!

Patrick - as a guy here on the ground who has real problems with the Armor situation, I have to tell you that if the media's failure to cover the war with any real accuracy is proof of a liberal media plot.

Well-then there is a liberal media plot.

You know of course that only Bill O'Reilly can tell us the color of the sky!

Max

Ps I find myself more often agreeing here-not disagreeing.

Or-The media is horribly ignorant about the military. That's probably more accurate-I know writers from the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Newday.

They are all completely clueless about the military-they are also alllll liberal.

I know that this is a small sampling, just a dozen journalist, but I thought I'd throw that in.

Mx

If you read journalists from the Military Times family of newspapers you might change your opinion. As well as Star & Stripes. They have ceratinly published article critical of Pentagon and Government decisions. They aren't ignorant of military matters.

Inidentally, here is a another guy who has a problem with the armor situation. He's a veteran of OIF and a former Marine Officer.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2958840