A Soldiers Blog

LAST CALL FOR ARMORED HUMVEES
Who in their right mind would vote to stop the production of armored humvees, to lay off workers at the only plant that makes them? Who would turn off the production while leaving tens of thousand of soldiers to drive hill billy armored humvees before the enemy's improvised explosive devices, car bombs and rocket propelled grenades?


The odds are 39% that it was your senator. That's right.




A simple measure to keep the production of armored humvees at two shift capacity for a couple of extra months this summer passed by only a 22 vote margin; 61 to 39 in the Senate this week.


If you care about the troops, you'd better pay attention because things are horribly wrong.

With $81 billion in "emergency" supplemental spending this year for Iraq and Afghanistan, one assumes (incorrectly) that armored humvees would be at the top of the list since around 400 of the 1500 fatalities were killed in them; a tally that increases daily. One might assume military spending on a solution would be a priority in Washington but it isn't.

Haven't you heard? The problem is solved. That's what the Army says. So instead the Emergency Supplemental funds for the war pay to move a police station to make way for a baseball stadium in Washington DC, it funds a ship terminal in Pennsylvania, it funds a large library in Hawaii, a fish hatchery elsewhere, a states' rights fight over islands off Alabama, and the list goes on.

So along comes little Amendment 520 sponsored by Sen. Bayh of Indiana and Sen. Kennedy: a small amount of money for a big matter. The amendment asks for $213 million to be added to the measure keep the only armored humvee production plant running at a two shift capacity this summer instead of shutting it down and laying off workers for lack of orders from the Army. As Tom Squitieri of USA TODAY noted,




Minstrel Boy: LAST CALL FOR ARMORED HUMVEES