Body Armor and Fritz

We have now put together all of our body armor and took it out for its first little walk. To be honest, I had never seen any of this stuff until I got here, so, it is a new facet of the adventure.

My first experience with body armor was during the invasion of Panama, when I was but a pup of a LT in the 7th ID (L). We were issued body armor, but never wore it during training, just occasionally during PT or something if the company commander was feeling froggy. When we were gearing up for Panama word came down from higher to start using our body armor and make sure we packed it when we invaded the joint. Every mission we executed in Panama we were covered from our head to our hips with Kevlar. This was probably the second generation of body armor, it probably wouldn't have stopped any rounds, maybe some fragments if the Panamanians would have been in the mood to do that sort of stuff, luckily they weren't and our body armor was never put to the test.

Side Bar:

Panama was where I decided to become a Green Beret. One of my best friends had just come to the battalion, Tony M, he received his commission through Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) and was a Special Forces NCO before he went to OCS and came to the battalion. He was incredibly tactically proficient, I figured if all Green Berets were as smart as him, I wanted to be in that club.

The other thing that tipped the scales was the missions we were doing in Panama. Most of our missions were cordon and searches, our battalion would surround a town and a SF team would go to the town to look for Panamanians on the capture list. We would roll up to the town in our HUGE, LUMBERING trucks, no stealth involved, unload, and set up our security positions. Every mission we did we wore all of our Kevlar: Including a helmet and the body armor that may or may not have stopped anything. We also coated any of our exposed body parts with green camouflage paint, as per 7th ID (L) SOP.

Coated in green paint, wearing about 25 lbs of kevlar, weapons, full load of ammunition and our bayonets we would stand around in the 100 degree heat, 99.99% Panamanian humidity. We thought we were pretty cool. Once we got the cordon set up, the SF guys would show up. They would drive up in these little red pickup trucks, wearing BDU bottoms, a T-shirt, patrol cap, and their weapon. When I saw that my first thought was "now, they are cooler than us", my second thought was "dang, they look comfortable", my third thought was "I bet those trucks have air conditioning", my final thought was "I want to be one of them."

My next body armor experience was when we invaded Haiti. Once again, we were familiar with the concept of body armor, but did not possess it in the SF battalion I was in. When were getting ready for the invasion, body armor magically showed up and we were told to make sure we brought it to the Haitian Invasion, which we dutifully did. Haitians were slightly less fierce than Panamanians, and to be honest, we could have gotten away without the body armor, but we were working with the rest of the army, so, we wore it when the rest of the army was around or when we were going to one of the big bases where the rest of the army lived. After we got done with the invasion, the body armor disappeared.

Fast forward 7 or so years, we were getting ready to go to Afghanistan, and once again, body armor didn't show up until we got there. Now, because Afghans are a bit more fierce than Panamanians and Haitians, there was no problem convincing folks to wear their body armor, as a matter of fact, folks couldn't get enough of the body armor AND routinely wore their helmets, which was a very un-SF like thing to do.

The Army has made great strides in the body armor development and we have just received the fifth or sixth generation of body armor, very good stuff, specifically designed to stop rounds from the front, sides and back, as well as fragments from just about anywhere else you can imagine. Now, this stuff is not light, which goes against everything in my hiking background, but I have no problem wearing it. When we get to Kuwait we will receive even better stuff, it is supposed to be more comfortable and have more protection, which is a good thing.