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To armor or not to armor Humvees was an Army decision.

The USMC armored all of its humvees. It was their decision as to where to spend their funding. But then, the USMC is always betting on all of its men and materiel being deployable at a moment's notice, anywhere.

The Army perhaps had been stationed in Germany for too long. But now its mission is changing rapidly. The doctrines underpinning their past Humvee aquisition decisions are not now operable. The increased costs for acquiring and operating armored Humvees, for largely rear area deployment, didn't seem to be correct at the time. In today's view it appears to be a "how could you be so stupid" decision.

As an aside, Foster Miller, of Waltham MA is making the armor refit packages for the Humvees in Iraq, and having them flown into Iraq, just as fast as it can. I cannot remember is Waltham is in Meehan's district or not.

Let me add to what you've said.

I think the Army has long resisted the notion of minimal numbers of deaths being a battlefield liability. We now live in an era when the media is clearly partisan, and is used as an anti-war political tool. Therefore, minimal numbers of deaths are, for the propagandizing of the viewing public, treated far more gravely than in the past.

In WWII, for instance, the old jeep seldom had any kind of siding....even the canvas siding to keep out the cold. The same in Korea and Vietnam. There were probably plenty of folks killed in jeeps who would not have been if they had been in APCs instead.

I honestly don't think there've been any improvements in the ability to kill light vehicles that's suddenly rearing its ugly head in Iraq. You could always kill light vehicles with fairly light weaponry.

The difference now is how the deaths are handled in the media. Period.

Since that's a battlefield reality that affects the outcome of the information battle, then we need to use real armored vehicles (tanks, bradleys, apcs, strykers) as a part of any convoy that includes many lighter-skinned transports.

Meehan is in an adjacent district from Foster Miller. The marines did a great job of rushing 1000 4 door armor kits into theater from Foster Miller in about 90 days, start to finish. It puts the army program to shame. The sad fact is though that Foster Miller has completed the order and will turn off the plant for ground vehicular armor at the end of this month. It will go back to making aircraft ceramic armor. The Army never placed an order with Foster-Miller. Thousands of vehicles could receive immediate partial protection for about 10K a piece if the Army would activate the Foster-Miller products that the army designed and tested. Very sad and poorly managed process by the army and excellent action by the marines on this matter.