Why do you want to armor general purpose utility vehicles?If you want to save lives, insist that patrols be performed in suitably armored vehicles such as Bradley's...but adding weight to rear echelon non-fighting vehicles simply adds costs and increases our support convoy needs (more convoys = more chances to be attacked - offsetting the advantage of having armor in the first place).
He we are at the end of April, the "deadliest" month in Iraq, and we've lost less than 120 Americans there...compared to losing more than 3,000 this month in simple highway road accidents stateside. Do we want to uparmor all American civilian road vehicles to be able to withstand 65 mph crashes?! Can you imagine what that would do to our demands for imported oil??
I'm simply offering some perspective. If you want to save lives by using armor, then patrols should be performed in vehicles *designed* for direct combat patrols (e.g. Bradleys and M1A1 Abrams). Armoring HMMWV's is like trying to armor up racing motorcylces stateside...a conflict in priorities.
Yes, we want to save American lives...so lets concentrate on applying the right tool to high risk patrols rather than encumbering the incorrect tools in some attempt to force-fit them into usage that they were never intended for.