Supprting our troops

[tsf]

First of all, this is not a political thread.And I apologize for the length. Awhile back Nasty posted a picture of an injured Marine. This wa Cpl. Casey Owens from the Houston area. Ther is a local radil talk show host who took a special interest when he was injured. He worked with local politicians to get his family to Germany to meet him when he evac'd. He stayed on the story and followed him all the way through his rehab and even visiteed him while in the hospital in Washington, DC. Through all of this, he met alot of military officials nd generals, etc. and ended up with an invitation to go to Iraq and report what he saw there. An earlier post of mine about a different view of the Deadlist Day was one of his journal entries. While he was embedde with the Marines, he met a Gunny who had come up with a way to armor the Humvee's underneath to protect them from IEDs. The armor was scrap and was bolted on in the field. Cpl Casey Owens was injured in a Humvee by an IED. We know it works, because one of the vehicles he had place this on was hit and the driver only suffered a broken leg from the armor being pushed up about 6 inches and the passengers only suffered minor bruises. The cost to do this is abou $700 per vehicle. The majority of the initial cost is getting the plasma cutting torches to cut the armor plates and MIG welders to the forward bases. So actually the cost per vehicle goes down. The only consumables after that are the tips for the plasma cutters, the wire for the welders and the armor, which is mostly scrap. Unfortunately, the military is great at logistics, but in responding quickly in the field to changing circunstances such as these, they have no good mechanism. The talk show host, Edd Hindy, is scheduled to go before the Armed Services Committee in Congress in a couple of weeks to discuss this. In the mean time we need to help our troops protect themselves. At www.lonestartimes.com they have set up a fund to purchase and ship these materials directly to the troops in Iraq. They so far have raise enough money to fit about 195 vehicles. If you go to the website and click on the PayPal icon in the upper right hand corner, you can see the options for donating. KSEV 700 AM has taken the ball and run with this and I would like to personally thank them. They do a lot to to look out for the folks here in the Houston area and in Texas. If you can support this effort I would appreciate it and I know our men and women in Iraq will.

 

[hollowdweller]

That's cool that they are trying to help those guys out.