Good post..from Elizabeth Edwards today
"Lots on my mind. The education article in Time has a lot of people talking, finally, about an education system that is complacent about producing winners . . . and losers. The supposed upcoming release of Medicare Prescription Plan Version 2.0 - when what seniors need is a patch for the existing plan. I could go on, but I want to talk about Soldiers for the Truth.
I've been busy writing my book, and I have spent a lot of time looking over old Stars and Stripes newspapers and my father's and grandfather's lists of duty stations. So the military was on my mind this morning, when I heard Lt. Col. Roger Charles, USMC Ret., on Washington Journal on C-SPAN. Col. Charles is President of Soldiers for the Truth, a non-partisan web-based education group advocating for the best possible equipment, training and leadership for those defending our country. Hard to argue with that goal, although, of course, some callers to Washington Journal suggested it was part of a liberal agenda to embarrass the President. Col. Charles talked about a lot of issues, but it was a story he told about body armor that provoked me to write about him today. Our military uses Interceptor body armor. For thirty years Interceptor has used fixed plates, front and back, to protect our troops. Improvements have been made over the years, but the basic technology is the same. The limitations in the technology mean that there are vulnerabilities on the sides and shoulders where the plates do not cover, and the limitations also mean at least eighty percent of Marines who died from torso wounds might have survived if their body armor had had more complete coverage, according to an Armed Forced Medical Examiner report looking at Marines killed in action in Iraq. Think about it. Eighty percent might have survived.
Is there anything better than Interceptor out there? Turns out there is, and what's more the Army has known about it since 1996."
Read the rest at
http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/2/9/181820/1596.