"Dude, Where's My Humvee?".(the supplying of armored Humvee military vehicles for troops in Iraq)(Editorial)

BYLINE: Graydon Carter

Among the more than 80 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in the first two weeks of April (along with upwards of 540 wounded) were a number of soldiers whose Humvees-the original, military version of a Hummer-were hit with rocket-propelled grenades or roadside bombs. These are not the hulking, three-ton behemoths soccer moms ferry their kids around in. The Humvees that an estimated 85 percent of American troops are still traveling in are basically desert-camouflaged pleasure vehicles, with fabric roofs and doors that would have trouble withstanding a rock attack, let alone rounds from an AK-47. (Soldiers, never at a loss for humor, call them "soft-tops.") In its rush to invade Iraq last year, the Pentagon shortchanged the young men and women it sent to fight its battles. More than a year after President Bush declared the war over, only 15 percent of the Humvees being used by American forces in Iraq are outfitted with armor capable of stopping armor-piercing bullets and protecting their passengers against roadside bombs and land mines. As Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Montera, of the 310th Military Police Battalion, told Newsday, "We're kind of sitting ducks in the vehicles we have."

Montera and the other troops from the 310th do the best they can to protect themselves in their 80 or so unarmored Humvees. When on patrol they remove their Kevlar vests and hang them on the doors, and line the floors of the vehicles with sandbags. National Guard troops such as those in the 143rd Military Police Company, from Hartford, Connecticut, try the same jury-rigged protective shielding on their Humvees. The 310th at least has new-or newish-vehicles; many of the Humvees used by the 143rd are 17 years old.

More than 100 troops have been killed in unarmored vehicles since the end of "major combat operations." Many of those lives would have been spared if the troops had been riding in armored vehicles. Add to this the huge number of young soldiers returning home minus arms or legs because they were traveling in unarmored Humvees when they were attacked. (Marines may be short of armored personnel carriers, but they were sent something from on high they probably weren't expecting-a pocket-size prayer book called A Christian's Duty in Time of War. It requests leathernecks to: [a] pray for the president, and [b] fill in a tear-out page and send it to the White House, saying that they had.)

In late 2003, during a hearing of the House Committee on Armed Services, Democratic congressmen Victor Snyder, from Arkansas, and Neil Abercrombie, from Hawaii, quizzed Lieutenant General Richard Cody about the shortage of armored Humvees.