Wonder of wonders. Andrew Exum, an Army vet who served in Afghanistan, has a reality-based piece in the NYTimes addressing the Hillary/body armor debate:

This week Senator Hillary Clinton, citing a secret Pentagon report that suggested some marines killed in Iraq might have survived had they been wearing more body armor, became the latest in a long line of politicians to castigate the Pentagon for a supposed failure to adequately protect our fighting men and women. Well-intentioned as the senator might be, the body-armor issue, like so many in war, is just not that simple.

From 2000 until 2004, I was an infantry officer in the Army. I deployed with a light-infantry platoon to Afghanistan in 2002, then with a platoon of Army Rangers to Iraq in 2003 and back to Afghanistan in 2004. While I can testify that soldiers usually appreciate the protection body armor gives them, the load shouldered by the average infantryman often hinders his ability to fight – especially at high altitude as in Afghanistan.

But in Iraq, as well, the “soldier’s load” is often unbearable. Most studies recommend that a soldier should not be burdened with more than one-third of his body weight. But if you take a 160-pound soldier and put 40 pounds of Kevlar and body armor on him and then he picks up an automatic weapon, ammunition, water and first aid equipment, it’s not long before he is carrying half his body weight – and he is then expected to run, jump and fight insurgents, themselves carrying little more than a 10-pound AK-47. All of this, of course, often takes place in 120-degree heat in the cities of Iraq.

Lost among the politicians’ cries for more extensive armor for the troops is the fact that most soldiers, in my experience and based on discussions with many, feel they have enough armor already – and many feel they are increasingly being burdened with too much equipment. And the new supplementary body armor unveiled this week in Washington doubles the weight of the equipment – worn over the torso and, now, the upper arms – to 32 pounds from 16 pounds (for a medium-sized soldier)…

Read the whole thing.

Since Hillary didn’t bother to show up to hear many other soldiers express the very same sentiments at a special hearing that she had demanded, you can do her the favor of e-mailing her Exum’s NYTimes piece or faxing it to (202) 228-0282.

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Where was Hillary?
Body armor: Pentagon pushback
Hillary wraps herself in armor
Help Soldiers’ Angels
The armor gap is real
Armor up: What you can do