Prepare yourself to be disgusted if you listent to this interview. Why? Because you will learn that the lives of our young men and women fighting in Iraq are not the number one priority of our military leaders, at least not when it comes to providing them with the best equipment. Soldiers for the Truth is an organization dedicated to supporting our troops by making sure they have the best in equipment, the best protection, the best chance of surviving war.
Soldiers for the Truth was founded in 1998 by Col. David H. Hackworth, deceased. Roger is a veteran who attended the Naval Academy and retired as a Lt. Col in 1990.
While most of us have heard of the controversy over providing our troops with body armor, you just will not believe it when Roger tells us that our troops don’t even have the best boots. Some special operation forces are being sent out to buy boots at REI. The rest of the troops either have to buy their own boots at their expense or take the standard government issue.
Can you believe there is a non-profit organization dedicated to buying and supplying our soldiers with helmut liners that are more effective and offer more protection than standard government issue?
Believe it or not, there are also issues as to whether or not the troops have the best rifles and pistols. Why? FOLLOW THE MONEY! It’s the people Charles calls the “Perfume Princes” in the E-Ring of the Pentagon, those who want to get a job working for someone in the military industrial complex when they retire, so they build bridges of friendship and money while they are in the military, all at the expense of the lives of our troops. (And I am supposed to believe whatever General Patreaus tells me in a few weeks about success in Iraq?)
And then there are the K-Street lobbyists who woo the boys in the Pentagon to buy this product or that product. Is there any wonder why the idea of what is the best helmut, the best boot, becomes a matter of nothing less than corruption. After all, a boot is a boot is a boot–until you are the one wearing it in 130 degree desert! And certainly body armor is all created equal–until it doesn’t stop the bullet aimed at you!
I am sure you have all seen something on TV or in the news about body armor. The question is whether the military is buying the best available for the troops. Testimony before Congress appears to be heated and conflicting.
As I understand it, the classic body armor has been ceramic material that is bulky and can’t be fashioned to be worn so as to protect certain areas of the body, like under the arms. And then there is a new body armor called Dragon Skin that may be superior. Others disagree. But what I don’t understand is how Roger Charles tells me that Soldiers for the Truth has been asking the military for more than 2 years now to agree to arrange an independent test of Dragon Skin which might, hopefully, put the controversy to rest. I mean if our level of technological advancement won’t allow us to establish whether or not one type of body armor is superior to another, we need to just find a hole and get in it.
Unless Charles is lying or stupid (I don’t think he is) it just makes no sense for anyone to oppose testing Dragon Skin or any other item of equipment to make sure we supply our troops with the best. Why isn’t this the first and foremost priority of the guys at the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, George W. Bush!
Charles also said that Senators Jim Webb (D-VA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and others, support his efforts to get to the bottom of the body armor controversy.
I am also happy to say that after the interview Roger checked and told me that John Barrow, our Congressman from the 12th, was also a supporter of his organizations efforts.
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