In 1942, our fleet got their clocks cleaned at the Battle of Savo Island by the Japanese. It was then, and remains to this day, one of the biggest military disasters for the USA.
There were so many things that went wrong, so many areas to lay blame (and did have blame assigned in inquests) that it seems not much different than the witchhunts one might see today.
One of the things that came up is how unprepared for war our ships were. We had thick coats of paint all over the inside and outside of ships. There were linoleum floors. Various rooms had overstuffed furniture in them. When the ships caught on fire, all of these things burned ferociously and were responsible for the deaths of many men.
When they tried to put the fires out, the equipment was inadequate for the job. It wasn't designed correctly, and men died.
The point is, these were lessons we learned in the crucible of warfare. There is often no other way to learn these lessons, and the lessons are hard, particularly for the men who die and the families who are left behind. But that is war.
One might argue that we knew how to design body armor before this war. Perhaps that is true, but it might be that we had reached the point of diminishing returns where throwing larger and larger sums of money at a problem produces smaller and smaller returns on the investment, all the low hanging fruit is gone. Sure, we could have had better armor, but at what cost? Would we have replaced all the units that probably were not all that old or used with newer units at twice the cost with 5-8% more protective value? If you are a person with a gun in your hand, the answer is yes.
But the problem with these things is that us civilians, including politicians, see these them one dimensionally. We tend to see them as isolated problems, when in fact, there are many things like this, and none can be fixed for free. We only see the armor or whatever the issue-du-jour is, but there are also (and these are not real, I am just making them up as examples of things that might be):
Defective guidance devices for JDAMS that could cause friendly casualties that must be addressed.
More armor and upgraded humvees.
Hydraulic weaknesses in Apache helicopters that put pilots at risk.
Expensive parts that must be replaced due to high wear and tear in an abrasive environment, where failure could put the users at risk.
And so on.
Now take those, and imagine how many more things there are out there, given how HUGE the military is, that have the capability of causing lost lives if some component is not performing as expected.
As far as I am concerned, this is part of an emotional anti-military anti-administration witch hunt.
Instead of giving thanks for the thousands of lives spared by the invention and use of body armor, we cannot allow even one micro smidgen of positive information to be associated with the war or those who are waging it. Hell if we had been using nuclear weapons instead of smart bombs and bullets, all of our problems would have been solved in an instant to continue with the logic of ignorance.