[MHGinTN]

Thanks for the ping. I have little regard for Meehan because he is a blind partisan hack in most things. I agree that up-armoring Humvees is a deathtrap scenario and that using heavier armor that has obsolete weaponry, converted to carry troops is a better solution (and the Israelis have proven it since they are outnumbered twenty to one by the bloodlusting Arabs and still send IDF troops into the heart of insanityland and return them alive).

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Last night, Celeste Vincente, her husband, Orlando, and a group of family friends clustered around the television to watch Congressman Martin T. Meehan stand on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, call their son a hero, and then use his death as an example of how the government has failed to provide U.S. troops with what he called "critical" equipment.

"I've been saying this for months," Meehan, D-Lowell, said after the speech. "It's a disgrace that any soldier serving the United States of America should have to buy his own equipment. And it's inexcusable."

Extra equipment might not have saved Vicente's life, Meehan said. But, he added, the Humvee in which the 25-year-old Marine was patrolling when it hit a land mine was one of 12,500 vehicles in Iraq that are not fully armored -- it had Kevlar on the sides, but not underneath.

Meehan said he has introduced a resolution to require the military to immediately upgrade the armor on all its Humvees.