TROOPS STILL UNDER-EQUIPPED

Despite all the news reports about the lack of equipment for our soldiers in Iraq, the Pentagon is still sending them over there without the protection they need. Parents often pay for what's needed for their sons and daughters.

Can you imagine the wingnut rage if this had occurred under Clinton?

Troops still buying own equipment, body armor
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
9/30/05

WASHINGTON - Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.

For Marine Sgt. Todd Bowers, that extra piece of equipment - a high-tech rifle scope bought by his father for $600 and a $100 pair of goggles - turned out to be a life-or-death purchase. And he has never been reimbursed.

Bowers, who is from Arizona but going to school in Washington, D.C., was shot by a sniper during his second tour in Iraq, but the round lodged in his scope, and his goggles protected his eyes from the shrapnel that struck his face.

"We weren't provided those going to Iraq," he said Thursday. "But they literally saved my life."

"Your expectation is that when you are sent to war, that our government does everything they can do to protect the lives of our people, and anything less than that is not good enough," said a former Marine who spent nearly $1,000 two weeks ago to buy lower-body armor for his son, a Marine serving in Fallujah.