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October 31, 2004
Oregon's Guard on 60 Minutes
Tonight's 60 Minutes featured an Oregon National Guard unit that's served in Iraq.
The program highlighted the dangers for the Guard with lack of bullets and shortages of body armor and a very serious lack of armored vehicles:
Lacking the proper steel plating to protect soldiers from enemy mines and rocket propelled grenades, they had been jerry-rigged with plywood and sandbags.
"They were called cardboard coffins," Preston says.
There have been more than 9,000 U.S. casualties in Iraq so far – more than 8,100 wounded and 1,100 killed. Nearly half of those casualties are the result of roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs in military jargon. Yet the U.S. military still lacks thousands of fully armored vehicles that could save American lives.
Specialist Ronald Pepin, who serves in Baghdad with the New York National Guard, says, "They have no ground plating. So if you hit something underneath you, then it's going to kill the whole crew, you know? And that's just something you have to live with."
Staff Sgt. Sean Davis from the Oregon National Guard was critically wounded last June when his unarmored Humvee hit an IED outside of Baghdad. He suffered shrapnel wounds, burns, and was unable to walk for six weeks.
Davis said his Humvee was armored with plywood, sandbags, and armor salvaged from old Iraqi tanks.
Steve Kroft conducts an interview with the general that oversees the Oregon National Guard. The general said that he has no control over any of the lack of equipment. He noted how he would do things differently if he were Secretary of Defense, taking care of the soldiers on the ground before tackling other things in the defense budget.
This truely is tragic. Our troops are in harms way without everything they need to do their job. Congress and the President should be ashamed. But do you hear them taking responsibility?
What a disgrace.
Posted by Carla at October 31, 2004 07:37 PM