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The increased maintenanace costs for the M113's coupled with the increased fuel costs are definitely one consideration. What I couldn't help thinking while reading this article was how we performed many of the missions being described before the HMMWV was introduced. We performed the missions using jeeps, and no one gave a damn about the lack of armor protection.

It is unfortunate that no one in the Army's procurement organization foresaw the extended deployment of 150,000 soldiers in a peacekeeping mission and bought the necessary equipment. But I'm glad they were more properly focused on buying the equipment for those 150,000 soldiers to go into combat and win as that has got to be a higher priority than peacekeeping.