BushCo Supports the Troop - With Sandbags and Plywood

18 months after the first battalions rolled into Baghdad, the following story should piss off anyone with connections to the military - vets, active duty, National Guard, friends, and family. This is absolutely unconcionable:

GIs Still Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets:

...Lacking the proper steel plating to protect soldiers from enemy mines and rocket propelled grenades, they had been jerry-rigged with plywood and sandbags.

"They were called cardboard coffins," Preston says.

...60 Minutes went to a man more familiar with the problems facing the Oregon National Guard than anyone else – its commanding general, Ray Byrne. General Byrne was somewhat reluctant to talk when 60 Minutes showed him pictures of his men's Humvees and trucks, armored with plywood and sandbags.

"If you have nothing then that's better than nothing. The question becomes then again when – when are they going to receive the full up armored Humvees? And I don't have that answer," says Gen. Byrne.

"It distresses me greatly that they do not have the equipment. I don't have control over it. The soldiers don't have control over it. The question becomes, 'When is it going to be available? When is it going to be available? When will they have it?"...

Well, there's one General who will undoubtedly be submitting his retirement papers shortly.

(Click through and read the whole story - it's one of those narratives that I can't really do justice for in a few quick blog excerpts.)