Flawed protection: Armored vehicle

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Armored vehicle, one of Army's toughest, wasn't enough to save LI soldier killed in Iraq

The soldier from Mastic who became the latest Long Island casualty of the war in Iraq was traveling in an armored vehicle that his family thought would keep him safe. But more and more, insurgents are successfully targeting some of the Army's toughest vehicles. "I thought all this metal around him would protect him to a certain point," said Thierry Wilwerth, whose son, Army Spc. Thomas J. Wilwerth, was killed last week when an IED, or improvised explosive device, exploded near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. "I always knew there was a chance."


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In the past six months, 35 GIs have been killed by roadside bombs while riding in Bradleys, Abrams tanks or Stryker armored vehicles, compared to 23 GIs killed in the heavily armored vehicles during the prior 18 months. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that another soldier had died in an IED attack on an armored vehicle. Spc. Joshua M. Pearce, 21, of Guymon, Okla., was killed in Mosul Feb. 26 when an IED detonated near his Stryker military vehicle.

Military analysts say much of the bomb-making material insurgents are using to target American troops -- as well as to kill Iraqi police, blow up mosques and attack ethnic adversaries -- were looted from Iraqi ammunition depots posts left unguarded by U.S. troops after Saddam Hussein was driven from power. "When we moved through the country, our goal was to move quickly and get to Baghdad, and there were not sufficient troops to secure the Iraqi ammunition dumps," said Jeremiah Gertler, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The vulnerability of armored vehicles has come as a shock to families who have lost soldiers to attacks against armored vehicles. Lorraine Montefering, whose son, Staff Sgt. Jason Montefering, 27, was one of four men killed in July when a roadside bomb pierced the armor of the 22-ton Bradley he was traveling in and flipped it over, said, "I think it was the size of the bombs. They are getting so extremely big you know." "All I know is that they were all good men," said Montefering, 65, of Parkston, S.D. "And they are all gone."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lisold0302,0,5056799.story?coll=ny-homepage-bigpix2005