The new armor vests, first used by the Rangers, is indeed "bullet-proof" when the ballistic plates are installed in the vest (they are removable-see "Black Hawk Down"). Most of us CS and CSS, along with ALO 2 CA active and reserve units still use the Kevlar vest from the 70's, with only fragmentary protection. Still better than nothing, and the wear of protective gear is strongly enforced in Iraq. Many lives saved by both. I'll take a wild guess and say the KIA numbers would be double or even more had the junior leaders not strongly enforced their use.
This article does sound like another anti-military hit-piece, though. The US military goes way out of it's way to ensure troop safety, we could do better (better armored convoy vehicles, body armor, the like) but no one else in the world does nearly as well!
The US military goes way out of it's way to ensure troop safety, we could do better (better armored convoy vehicles, body armor, the like) but no one else in the world does nearly as well!I beleive that, but if we can do even better, we should, especially considering what we are spending. Another $100 million is nothing next to $87 billion.
Ya just look at Canada. We are so short of flak jackets that we stripped our soldiers in Bosnia to let our soldiers in Afghanistan have them. These are full time soldiers not reserves so it's not like all full time soldiers have them.