Target Centermass

Category: Military

  • General Sees Permanent 30,000 Increase in U.S. Army

    I see this as pretty much a done deal.

    With the U.S. military heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior general said on Thursday he expected the Pentagon will make permanent a temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers in the Army.

    The senior Army general, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said, “As far as I can see, it will be hard for us to come off of the 30 (thousand).” Maintaining the additional 30,000 soldiers costs $3 billion annually, he said.

    A permanent increase to 512,000 soldiers in the Army would require congressional approval.

    “There is stress in the force,” the general added. “That’s why we asked for the temporary 30-K increase to relieve some of that pressure. That’s why we instituted stop-loss.”

    The Army has issued so-called stop-loss orders blocking thousands of soldiers from leaving the military if their volunteer service ends while they are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    A year ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the addition of 30,000 soldiers beyond the Army’s approved limit of 482,000, using emergency powers granted by Congress.

    The move came as the Army was struggling to maintain troop levels for the guerrilla war in Iraq that scuttled earlier plans to draw down forces there.

    Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for a permanent increase in the size of the Army — which provides most of the troops for the two wars. Rumsfeld has resisted, arguing that restructuring the force and making it more efficient could reduce some of the stress.

    The general’s comments followed news of a memo by Lt. Gen. James Helmly, head of the U.S. Army Reserve, in which he said the reserve was “rapidly degenerating into a ‘broken’ force” because of dysfunctional military policies.

    With the regular Army stretched thin and crucial specialists like military police concentrated in reserve units, the Pentagon has tapped heavily into the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard to keep up troop levels in Iraq.

    Reservists make up 40 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq.

    “I would not use the term ‘broke,”‘ the senior general told reporters. “‘Stressed’ is probably a much more accurate term.”

    A draft? No. But I certainly advocate an increase in the size of the all-volunteer military, certainly more than just making permanent the 30K temporary boost in this article. The issue is not if we have enough troops for today but rather if we have enough for tomorrow.

  • Accused Deserter a No-show after Leave

    On this blog, I respectfully treated the case of Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun in what I felt was a balanced, fair manner.

    Now it looks like he is quite probably a deserter … twice over.

    A U.S. Marine corporal already charged with desertion in his disappearance from Iraq last year has failed to return from leave and may have fled to Lebanon, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

    Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was required to report back to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, by noon Tuesday, and was declared a deserter Wednesday afternoon after failing to do so, according to a statement from the Marine Corps.

    His commanders have authorized civil authorities to apprehend him, according to a statement from Camp Lejeune.

    Investigators have found evidence that Hassoun has fled the United States for Lebanon, where he turned up in July after his disappearance from an American base in western Iraq, Pentagon officials told CNN.

    Hassoun’s family told military officials that he had left Utah, where he was on leave, four days before he was to return to Camp Lejeune.

    But Hassoun is now believed to have taken money out of the bank and changed his flight destination from North Carolina to Canada, where he booked a flight to Lebanon, where he was born and has relatives, Marine Corps officials said.

    In December, the Marines charged Hassoun, who served as a truck driver and Arabic translator, with desertion and theft. He has denied deserting and was not held in confinement after being charged.

    Marine officials said Wednesday that he was not believed to be a flight risk because he had turned himself in after initially disappearing from Iraq. In addition, the Marines had let him go on leave to Utah two times before he was charged, and he had shown no sign that he would try to flee.

    His latest disappearance is another twist in an already convoluted story, with many details still unclear.

    In June, Hassoun disappeared from a Marine camp outside the Iraqi city of Falluja. Originally listed as a deserter, his status was changed to “captured” after the release of a videotape showing him blindfolded, with a sword above his head.

    Islamist Web sites reported that he had been executed by an Iraqi militant group, but Hassoun turned up with relatives in Lebanon in July and was returned to the United States.

    Military investigators charged him with desertion and theft of government property — a military vehicle and his service weapons — after U.S. troops found his civilian passport, military ID card and uniform during the siege of Falluja in November.

    If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison for desertion and up to 10 years for each theft.

    I now believe this man will never be found again on American soil. He may, however, be stupid enough to make his way onto a battlefield. If so and he’s captured, I have one question: do we still hang traitors?

  • $2 Million to Save Army Marriages

    Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.

    —Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Recognizing the obviously detrimental effect of homefront instability on soldiers, the Army is investing in programs to salvage and strengthen marriages among its troops.

    With studies showing divorce rates as high as 21 percent among couples where one spouse has been sent off to war, the Army is spending $2 million on a variety of marriage programs, including vouchers for romantic getaways to places like the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.

    “I’ve been in the Army 20 years, and I’ve never seen the Army pay for programs like this,” said Lt. Col. Chester Egert, chaplain for the 101st.

    One program being implemented Army-wide teaches couples forgiveness and the skills to communicate. It includes a 40-hour course with lessons on the dangers of alcohol and tobacco and how to recognize post-traumatic stress. Soldiers who complete it are rewarded with promotion points and a weekend retreat with their spouse.

    “If you learn those skills, you can make an impact on the number of divorces, and the number, we think, of reports of physical violence,” said Col. Glen Bloomstrom, director of ministry initiatives for the Chief of Chaplains.

    To make the program more desirable, commanders are encouraged to give their soldiers time off to attend. Baby-sitting is often provided.

    “What we’re trying to do is change the culture, that it’s OK to work on your marriage and take some time, and invest in your lifelong relationship — especially now when we’re asking so much of your military spouses,” Bloomstrom said.

    ….

    The Army’s recent foray into marriage counseling was started in the late 1990s by a chaplain in Hawaii working with a unit with a high number of divorces. In 2001, laws were changed to allow the Army to pay for lodging and meals for the retreats.

    ….

    Egert said the Army’s effort doesn’t just make for stronger families — it makes for better soldiers.

    “Soldiers will come apart in Afghanistan and Iraq. They’ll absolutely collapse if they think their wife is going to leave them or their husband is going to leave them,” Egert said. “I’ve seen soldiers hospitalized because they absolutely had a nervous breakdown because they were worried about their families.”

    Added Bloomstrom: “You are really giving something that the couples know they need, at a time they may be receptive to hear it.”

    I have a little experience in these kind of matters, though only enough to give me a window through which I can peek and gain a small measure of understanding. While at my initial training at Ft. Knox, I was dumped via letter by my girlfriend at the time. Granted, it was nowhere near the ordeal of a divorce or a custody battle, but it most assuredly had an effect on my personal morale and motivation.

    I support the aims of the Army’s programs and recognize their potential value. My only question is the awarding of promotion points for involvement — this seams an unfair and unnecessary advantage to married personnel as opposed to their single counterparts. Marriage already has a financial inducement in the services, not to mention the nice little get-aways, etc., mentioned in this article.

  • Navy SEALs Sue AP Over Iraq Prison Photos

    Too often these days, one can feel disgusted by the plague of frivolous lawsuits that burden the American legal system. Juries confound with ludicrous verdicts. Lawyers turn the law into a lottery.

    Still, sometimes I just have to root for the plaintiffs.

    Six members of a Navy special forces unit and two Navy wives sued The Associated Press on Tuesday, saying the news agency endangered the servicemen’s lives and invaded their privacy by publishing photos showing the men interacting with Iraqi prisoners.

    The lawsuit says the agency erred by not obscuring the identity of the six SEALs in photos that accompanied a story distributed worldwide earlier this month, contending publication of the photos jeopardizes future covert operations and harms the servicemen’s careers.

    “There was no need for the AP to publish the faces of the SEALs,” James W. Huston, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a press release. “In fact, the SEALs showed more respect for the insurgents and terrorists that they were apprehending by obscuring their faces than the AP did for the Navy SEALs who were in Iraq risking their lives.”

    The story was written by San Diego reporter Seth Hettena, who is named as a defendant. The story did not name the Navy members or the wife who posted the photos on what she believed was a private Web site.

    “We believe that none of the claims have any solid basis in the law as we understand it,” said Dave Tomlin, AP’s assistant general counsel. “We intend to defend ourselves and our reporter vigorously and, we expect, successfully.”

    The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, states that Hettena took the photos from a Navy wife’s “personal digital photo album without notice or permission.” It says that the woman, identified only as “Jane Doe,” believed the nearly 1,800 photos she posted on the Internet site were protected from access by unauthorized users and required a password to view.

    The initial AP story, transmitted Dec. 3, noted that the photos were found on the commercial photo-sharing Web site Smugmug.com using the search engine Google, and were not password-protected until after the reporter purchased copies online and began inquiries.

    The story said the photos appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees and also what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head. It noted that the Navy had launched a formal investigation into the photographs after being shown them by an AP reporter, adding that the photos did not necessarily depict any illegal activities.

    The AP later reported that the Navy’s preliminary findings showed most of the 15 photos transmitted by the agency were taken for legitimate intelligence-gathering purposes and showed commandos using approved procedures.

    ….

    The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages, including punitive damages, and a preliminary injunction barring the AP from further use of the photos and requiring the agency to protect the SEALs’ identities.

    It contends that at least two wives of the SEALs pictured have received daily harassing and threatening phone calls since the photos were published, and alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress.

    I don’t know enough of the applicable areas of the law, but I suspect the plaintiff’s case is weak at best. Nevertheless, I am so appalled at the behaviour of the mainstream media, both during the presidential campaign and throughout the Iraqi campaign, that I can only dream of a sympathetic jury or a costly, punishing settlement. That the Associated Press will actually undertake a review of their motivations or alter their coverage is beyond hope, at least in the foreseeable future.

  • Mortuary Unit in Iraq Trying on Marines

    A daily onslaught on one’s sense of humanity — a constant dosage of the aftermath of the brutality of war. And little or no relief when the day is done.

    I would never want this necessary and unappreciated duty.

    When U.S. servicemen and insurgents die in Fallujah, the bodies are brought back to camp and laid on a concrete floor under a tent hidden behind blast walls topped with concertina wire. The sign outside says: “Do Not Enter.”

    Five men check the corpses and put them in refrigerators. Within 72 hours, the slain American will arrive at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base in a flag-draped coffin, while the Iraqi will be buried in a plot outside Fallujah facing Mecca.

    This is the work of Mortuary Affairs, the Marine unit that catalogues the remains of American servicemen who die in combat, referred to as angels, as well as the Iraqi guerrillas they fight and civilian victims. These Marines must cope with one of the most psychologically punishing but unavoidable tasks of war.

    They are shunned by their peers because of a superstition that contact with them brings bad luck. Yet some don’t want to go home and leave their fellow Marines who are among the few who have witnessed the same horrors. They must try to stay sane even as they are confronted with the effects of gruesome killings by the shrapnel-filled roadside bombs set by insurgents and terrible U.S. firepower.

    “Some of the guys, when it gets dark, don’t want to go out by themselves. Sometimes they feel like somebody’s watching them when they know there isn’t,” said Lance Cpl. Boyce Kerns, a 24-year-old from Greenville, S.C. “Some of the stuff we’ve seen you wouldn’t see in the worst horror movies and it leaves a little imprint.”

    ….

    Many in the Mortuary Affairs unit at Camp Fallujah are reservists, former cooks and supply clerks from a unit in Washington. On a recent day, their routine was perfectly normal. Several sat around a television watching “Saving Private Ryan,” others laughed and teased each other, while some were about to leave to play video games.

    Some, like Kerns, volunteered for the work because they just wanted to join the Iraq fight no matter what. Others decided to do it so their colleagues wouldn’t have to, and some were assigned.

    They were sent to a two-week training course that included a stop at the Baltimore morgue to get accustomed to the sight and smell of death. Many among them had never seen a human corpse before.

    “As for seeing the insurgents dead, I know that these guys were out there killing Marines, they were given a choice whether to surrender or not, so seeing their corpses mangled up doesn’t bother you,” said Cpl. Jeffrey Keating, a 26-year-old from Queens, N.Y. “But seeing the Marines dead, that hurts a little bit more. But you just got to see it as a job.”

    The 16 Marines who process the dead, working eight at a time in 24-hour shifts, follow the same routine.

    When a body arrives, it is brought inside the tent and placed on a concrete floor. Two men are the “dirty hands” who inspect the body, catalogue wounds and check for unexploded weapons. One sorts through the slain person’s belongings. Two more are the “clean hands,” writing down what the others find.

    The dead American’s name, social security numbers and place of death are written into a hardcover lime-green log book. The body is given an evacuation number and then placed in a body bag — a stack of unused bags labeled “pouch, human remains w/6 handles” sits to the side of the tent.

    Iraqi dead go to a white refrigerator while American dead go to one of two camouflage refrigerators on the other side of the tent. The entire process usually takes about 15 minutes.

    American bodies are then sent to a U.S. base in Doha, Qatar and on to Dover, while Iraqi bodies are buried in a plot outside Fallujah marked with coordinates from a global positioning system so relatives can identify the remains later.

    “We take a picture, make sure there’s no unexploded ordnance or personal effects, and look for identification,” said Marine Cpl. John Belizario, 23, of Washington. “We bury them in a plot — four rows of 10, all facing Mecca as a sign of respect, basically.”

    Everyone has to deal with the times when they’re alone, when the darkness is around them. Those in uniform often rely on the camaraderie of the fellow troops, a relief the members of Mortuary Affairs must carry on without.

    When the work is finished, the Marines clean up and go to chow hall. Anyone who knows who they are stays away or barely acknowledges them because talking to them is considered bad luck.

    “When the day is done, we’re by ourselves,” Kerns said. “We’ve tried to have interaction with the other units, but when they find out what we do, that’s about the end of that.”

    These men may need and deserve our thanks and support more than any other upon their return.

  • Kids Raise Money for Soldiers’ Phone Cards

    Sometimes, a great story just speaks for itself.

    For all the billions of dollars being spent on the war in Iraq, 14-year-old Brittany Bergquist is surprised that the U.S. military doesn’t do what she and her little brother are doing: helping soldiers phone home free.

    “I’m kind of happy that they didn’t supply them,” she said, “because we’ve always wanted to do something for the soldiers.”

    With $14 from their piggy banks, she and 12-year-old brother Robbie started Cell Phones for Soldiers. In less than nine months, the organization has provided $250,000 worth of prepaid calling cards to American soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

    They raise money by collecting old cellular phones and selling them to companies that refurbish them for resale.

    It all started in April, when the family heard about a Massachusetts soldier who ran up $7,600 in cell phone charges calling home from Iraq. T-Mobile forgave much of the bill. But Brittany and Robbie figured there must be other soldiers — including a cousin of theirs — who are stationed in Iraq and want to call home more often but cannot afford it.

    The Bergquist kids pooled their money and got friends to kick in $7 more. They opened a bank account at South Shore Savings Bank, which was so impressed it contributed $500. Yard sales followed, along with newspaper articles and TV interviews. Hundreds of schools and organizations, from Hawaii to Georgia, have started local chapters and become drop-off centers for used cell phones.

    “It’s hard doing everything,” said Brittany, an eighth-grader from the Boston suburb of Norwell. “But it doesn’t matter to us. We think about how hard the soldiers work every day and they don’t have a choice to stop.”

    Last week, the IRS granted Cell Phones for Soldiers nonprofit status, meaning contributions to the cause are tax-deductible.

    The USO, the private organization that entertains U.S. troops overseas, runs a similar program, called Operation Phone Home. A $10 donation will buy a serviceman or servicewoman a 100-minute global calling card.

    Related sites:
    Cell Phones for Soldiers
    USO

  • Soldier Charged With Having Himself Shot

    If the allegations are true, this so-called soldier disgusts me.

    Police have arrested a soldier they say had his cousin shoot him so he wouldn’t have to return to Iraq.

    Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, of Hinesville, Ga., suffered a minor wound Tuesday to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol, police said. He was treated at a hospital, then arrested after he and his cousin allegedly admitted making up a story about the shooting.

    After giving differing accounts of the incident, “they just broke down and confessed that they concocted the whole story so he didn’t have to go back to the war,” Philadelphia police Lt. James Clark said Thursday.

    Police charged Roberts with filing a false report and charged his cousin, Ronald Fuller, with aggravated assault and other charges.

    Roberts, who was visiting family in Philadelphia, initially claimed he was shot during an attempted robbery, but Fuller had said the incident occurred at another location during an argument, according to Clark.

    Roberts, 23, was on a two-week leave from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which led the assault on Baghdad in 2003. He is scheduled to return to Iraq within the next few months. The division has been home since the summer of 2003.

    Police said Roberts, a supply specialist who had spent seven months in Iraq, was distraught about having to return to combat duty and wanted to stay with his family.

    Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, a 3rd Infantry spokesman, said Roberts had been scheduled to return this week to Fort Stewart, Ga.

    Roberts could face military discipline if the charges prove true, Kent said, but the civilian case probably would proceed first.

    There is no evidence that this is a story of a stand on principle or conscience, but rather one of cowardice and an absence of a sense of duty. If this man is as guilty as it seems, he should face and endure his civilian punishment, followed by as much prosecution and punishment called for by the UCMJ. After he departs (preferably dishonorably) from the service, he can bide is time until that fateful day when his grandchildren ask him of his service.

    “Well, your grandpappy served, came back and then decided to have ol’ cousin Ron to cap him in the leg so grandpappy didn’t have to go help his buddies again. Maybe I should’ve just shoveled shit in Louisiana.”

    Such a disgraceful story to break on the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of the Battle of the Bulge.

  • Marine ‘Hostage’ Faces Desertion Charges

    I refrained.

    And then I refrained again.

    Now this.

    A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and then showed up in a purported hostage video before later appearing as a free man in Lebanon, is being charged with desertion, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

    Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun will also be charged by the Marine Corps with larceny and wrongful disposition of military property in connection with his service-issued 9 mm handgun that disappeared with him and never turned up, officials said.

    ….

    If found guilty of desertion, he could receive a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and allowances, and five years’ confinement for each specification.

    Maximum punishment for each specification of larceny and for the wrongful disposition charge is a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and allowances and 10 years’ confinement.

    ….

    Military investigators re-opened the Hassoun case last month after several personal items — including his military ID and civilian passport — were found in Falluja, the city from which he disappeared in June.

    “The circumstances of his alleged capture and subsequent return to military control are still being investigated,” the Marines said in a statement.

    Hassoun reappeared July 7 in Lebanon, where he was born and has relatives.

    What happened to Hassoun is a mystery to military investigators.

    After the initial report that Hassoun was missing, military officials assumed he had walked away from camp. He was listed as a deserter.

    His status was changed to captured after the release of a videotape that showed him blindfolded with a sword suspended above his head. A few days later, a posting to three Islamist Web sites claimed Hassoun had been beheaded.

    Hassoun denied being a deserter and staging his own kidnapping.

    A Marine Corps official said representatives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services did not interview Hassoun until after he completed his 30-day home leave, following his repatriation back to the United States. Its report was submitted to Hassoun’s command November 30.

    I will still refrain. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Let the processes of the UCMJ run their course, right?

    Yeah, I’ll refrain again. Just enough to say that, if this sonofabitch is found guilty, I want him punished to the abso-freaking-lute maximum.

  • More U.S. Soldiers Survive War Wounds

    Perhaps the most deserving and most unheralded story of the current war is the astonishing success of the military’s medical cadre.

    For every American soldier killed in Iraq, nine others have been wounded and survived — the highest rate of any war in U.S. history. It isn’t that their injuries were less serious, a new report says. In fact, some young soldiers and Marines have had faces, arms and legs blown off and are now returning home badly maimed.

    But they have survived thanks, in part, to armor-like vests and fast treatment from doctors on the move with surgical kits in backpacks.

    “This is unprecedented. People who lose not just one but two or three extremities are people who just have not survived in the past,” said Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who researched military medicine and wrote about it in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

    ….

    By mid-November, 10,369 American troops had been wounded in battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, and 1,004 had died — a survival rate of roughly 90 percent. In the Vietnam War, one in four wounded died, virtually all of them before they could reach MASH units some distance from the fighting.

    Please go read this examination of the effects of advancements in both the protection of soldiers and the treatment of casualties. The story also highlights the courage, determination and skill of our medical personnel. I’ve never met a medic I didn’t like. Apparently, it’s a calling that summons a better, stronger person than I am.

    There is the other side of the story, though.

    “This war is producing unique injuries — less lethal but more traumatic,” he said.

    In one traumatic case, Gawande tells of an airman who lost both legs, his right hand and part of his face. “How he and others like him will be able to live and function remains an open question,” Gawande writes.

    We now face a new generation of injured combat veterans, many of whom would not have survived their wounds in times past. We, as a nation, must welcome and care for them. We must thank them and help them hold on to their humanity and rebuild their lives.

    We owe that to them. And to their caregivers.

  • U.S. GIs Hit Rumsfeld With Hard Questions

    In a time of war, this disgusts me on many levels.

    In a rare public airing of grievances, disgruntled soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about long deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.

    “You go to war with the Army you have,” Rumsfeld replied, “not the Army you might want or wish to have.”

    Spc. Thomas Wilson had asked the defense secretary, “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Shouts of approval and applause arose from the estimated 2,300 soldiers who had assembled to see Rumsfeld.

    Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

    “We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,” Wilson, 31, of Nashville, Tenn., concluded after asking again.

    Wilson, an airplane mechanic whose unit, the 278th Regimental Combat Team of the Tennessee Army National Guard, is about to drive north into Iraq for a one-year tour of duty, put his finger on a problem that has bedeviled the Pentagon for more than a year. Rarely, though, is it put so bluntly in a public forum.

    First, media coverage of such an event should be better controlled, if not completely banned. I have no problem with top brass getting feedback from the lower echelons, but this should be an opportunity to exchange information, concerns and reassurances, not a chance to create political footballs. That was the fault of those in charge.

    The soldier’s question was out of line in a public forum. Grumbling and complaining are more than a soldier’s right — they’re practically an obligation. However, said grumbling and complaining is not to be done in a manner to cast an ill effect upon morale. Especially in a war zone. Rumsfeld’s response was correct — ya fight with what ya got. We fought in World War II with tanks tragically inferior to those of the Germans. Such shortcomings are made up for in other areas until they can be feasibly addressed. This improper questioning, this verbal poison, was the fault of the soldier. Why did it have to be a freakin’ Guardsman?!

    As to the “shouts of approval and applause,” I saw video of this and, while some shouting and clapping occurred, it was a very small percentage of those present. That this was presented in the manner above was an attempt to politicize and enhance the negativity of the story. That is the fault of the media.

    What is the actual armor situation?

    Rumsfeld said the Army was sparing no expense or effort to acquire as many Humvees and other vehicles with extra armor as it can. What is more, he said, armor is not the savior some think it is.

    “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can (still) be blown up,” he said. The same applies to the much smaller Humvee utility vehicles that, without extra armor, are highly vulnerable to the insurgents’ weapon of choice in Iraq, the improvised explosive device that is a roadside threat to Army convoys and patrols.

    U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq are killed or maimed by roadside bombs almost daily. Adding armor protection to Humvees and other vehicles that normally are not used in direct combat has been a priority for the Army, but manufacturers have not been able to keep up with the demand.

    …

    At the Pentagon, spokesman Larry Di Rita said production of armored Humvees had increased from 15 to 450 a month since fall 2003, when commanders in Iraq started asking for them because of insurgents’ heavy use of roadside explosives.

    Overall, there are 19,000 armored Humvees in the Iraqi theater. Some were built with additional armor, others had it added on later. That’s, 2,000 short of what commanders are asking for, Di Rita acknowledged.

    Military policy is that troops driving into Iraq in Humvees drive only in armored ones, Di Rita said. Some $1.2 billion has been included in the defense budget to pay for armored vehicles, he said.

    Any other complaints, troops, while you have the SecDef and the cameras here?

    Wilson and others, however, had criticisms of their own — not of the war but of how it was being fought.

    During the question-and-answer session, another soldier complained that active-duty Army units seem to get priority over National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment used in Iraq.

    “There’s no way I can prove it, but I am told the Army is breaking its neck to see that there is not” discrimination of that kind, Rumsfeld said.

    Shut up, do your job and quit embarrassing the Guard and Reserves. Regarding this and other such embarrassments, Stryker has created an entire Reservist category on his Digital Warfare site. As a former Guardsman, I don’t blame him one freaking iota.