Oliver links to this story, and my only coment is BULLSHIT:
The Democratic National Committee, in response, sent out a statement from Nita Martin, a Pennsylvania mother and registered Republican whose two sons have served in Iraq.
Martin said it was the Bush administration who has failed to support the troops.
“Before one of my sons left, he went online to buy himself a helmet that would better protect him than the one which was issued to him by the U.S. military,” she said. “If anybody doesn’t support the troops it’s George W. Bush. He sent my sons to war with no plan. They were ill-prepared and the result is more and more casualties every day.”
Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. Now Oliver, whose experience in the military includes watching Platoon and Saving Private Ryan might swallow that horseshit, but I don’t. No soldier is deployed into a combat zone without a Kevlar helmet. Cripes- no soldier makes it from the replacement center to his basic training unit without being issued a Kevlar.
This is just utter hogwash. I am so sick and tired of know-nothings like Oliver exploiting TOE’s for partisan gain. Not all units are issued the same equipment. When you hear stories of soldiers not being issued body armor, itis because their unit was never slated to have body armor of a specific type, for whatever operational reason. Not because they weresent into a combat zone unprepared.
There are always changes to TOE’s, and there are lag times in between equipment changes and unit wide distribution of new equipment. This is not because our military is underfunded, under-supported, or because our leadership cares. This is a sign that we are constantly testing new equipment and deployingit as fast as possible to theplaces needed most.
Furthermore, different units require deifferent equipment. When you hear people bitching that they didn’t have ‘armored’ HumVees, there is a reason for it- their normal mission did not require that theyhave them. If the mission changes, the military does its best to shift its resources appropriately. This is not a sign of a lack opf preparedness, but rather, versatility. Different jobs require different equipment, otherwise we would just have every god damned soldier in theatre in an M1A2 Abrams tank, because it doesn’t get much safer than that.
Sometimes people should take the old advice that it is ‘better to sit there and let people think you are stupid rather than opening your mouth and proving it.’