Editor's Letter

EDITOR'S LETTER

July 2004 Graydon Carter
Editor's Letter
EDITOR'S LETTER
July 2004 Graydon Carter

EDITOR'S LETTER

Young Lives in Harm's Way

My attitude is, any time we put one of our soldiers in harm's way, we're going to spend whatever is necessary to make sure they have the best training, the best support, and the best possible equipment.

—Commander in Chief

George W. Bush

In late April, at a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, which was looking into the ongoing cost of the war, Ohio representative Marcy Kaptur asked Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz how many soldiers had died up to that point. Wolfowitz replied, "It's approximately 500, of which—I can get the exact numbers—approximately 350 are combat deaths."

In fact, at that time the number was 722. That Wolfowitz, the son of a famed mathematician and one of the principal architects of the war, could be off the mark on the U.S. death count by more than 30 percent reflects an astonishingly insensitive attitude toward young American lives. That the Pentagon was ill-prepared for the intricacies of occupation is without question. The horrific postwar treatment of Iraqi prisoners and civilians is proof of that. But in its rush to wage war the Pentagon was similarly illprepared. Forget about expensive weapon systems; ground troops in Iraq have reported shortages of more quotidian elements of war, everything from ammunition, protective gear, and armored vehicles to walkie-talkies—and even when soldiers did have walkie-talkies, their range was often too limited, in which case units would try to contact one another by cell phone or e-mail.

Seven months after the end of the war, there were still approximately 40,000 soldiers—nearly one-third of the troops in Iraq—without fully functioning Interceptor vests, which are designed to stop a round from an AK-47, the most common automatic rifle in the world. (In some units, one vest was being passed around among several soldiers.) Most U.S. troops were supplied with Vietnamera flak jackets, designed to protect the wearer from shrapnel but not modernday ammunition. Interceptors are made of Kevlar; they're a third lighter than the old ones, and have pockets for ceramic plates to protect vital organs. The difference between having a new vest and an old one, Ben Gonzalez, chief of the emergency room at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, told

The Washington Post, is the same as the difference "between being hit with a fist or with a knife."

The Interceptors are credited with saving the lives of at least 29 soldiers in Afghanistan alone. And given our nearhalf-trillion-dollar defense budget, one would think that, at a time of war, the Pentagon would have spent the estimated $200 million it would have taken to outfit the 135,000 American ground troops with the safer, modem vests.

In wars past, parents of soldiers sent their kids chocolates, cookies, photos, and other mementos of home. In the wake of the Iraq invasion, parents of American soldiers scoured the Internet looking for Interceptor vests (about $ 1,500 retail) they could send overseas.

One such mother was Suzanne Werfelman, an elementary-school teacher in Sciota, Pennsylvania, whose son, army specialist Richard Murphy, is a reservist spending 20 months in Iraq. As Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, recounted the story in the Los Angeles Times, Murphy and his unit had been given the old flak jackets—like most reserve units. Murphy's group "was eventually given some Interceptor vests weeks after they arrived in Iraq, but even then the new vests were missing the essential ceramic plates. That is when Werfelman went out and bought some plates for $650—more than her weekly salary—and sent them to her son so he'd have basic protection. Workers at one armor company she called said that they had been deluged with calls from parents trying to buy vests and plates for their sons and daughters overseas."

Turley also told the story of Sergeant Zachariah Byrd, a soldier with the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, "who was shot four times with AK47 bullets (twice in the chest and twice in his arms) when his unit was ambushed. The [Interceptor] vest protected his chest and he survived." A happy ending except that "Byrd had been issued a standard flak jacket and, if he had been wearing it during the attack, he'd probably be dead. However, at the beginning of the patrol, his buddy who was driving that night gave his ... vest to Byrd—a passing kindness that saved Byrd's life." When Turley called the Pentagon to talk about the vests, a procurement officer told him the Interceptor vests were a "non-priority" item, like tents. GRAYDON CARTER