Armor

An unreleased Pentagon study of fatal torso wounds to Marines in Iraq found that most might have been prevented or minimized if the troops had been wearing improved body armor. The study last summer by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner looked at 93 fatal wounds from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2005. It concluded that 74 of the wounds were from bullets or shrapnel hitting shoulders or other areas of the torso not protected by ceramic armor plates.

A former soldier injured in Iraq is getting a refund after being forced to pay for his missing body armor vest, which medics destroyed because it was soaked with his blood, officials said Wednesday. First Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV, 25, had to leave the Army with a shrapnel injury to his arm. But before he could be discharged last week, he said, he had to scrounge cash from his buddies to pay $632 for the body armor and other gear he had lost.

Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor that was not issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday. The order was prompted by concern that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested armor from private companies, including the Dragon Skin gear made by Fresno-based Pinnacle Armor Inc., the Army officials said.

As the radio crackled with a report that nearby soldiers had come under attack, the mood among Georgia National Guard members in their heavily armored truck grew tense. They were entering a stretch of road known as "the Gantlet" for its frequent small-arms fire and roadside bombs. Earlier in the summer, three members of the company were killed in a roadside blast not far away. Staff Sgt. Rodney "Bull" Bettis gave the driver a warning: Don't slow down. Speeding up is a common response to the rising threat from roadside bombs all around Afghanistan, an instinctual response to mortal danger.

I am always affected by these principled patriots such as the letter writer who said, "We Americans who sit calmly inside our enclosures Start by faxing, e-mailing or writing President Bush to rescind his tax cuts so we might be able to provide body armor, armor for Humvees, money for reintroducing veterans into the workforce and replace the cuts in veterans benefits. Or is that too much of a debt to bear? Principle isn't principle until it costs. CHRISTOPHER KNOPF \o7Santa Monica \f7

Re "Walter Reed chief fired over troop treatment," March 2 There's plenty of money for secret prisons, databases and wiretaps and for no-bid contracts to friends of the White House. But when it comes to protecting our troops with appropriate armor or caring for them when they are injured, we suddenly don't have adequate funds. How long do we let this continue, and who is going to stop it? JESSE ALBERT \o7Los Angeles \f7

Re "Petraeus' 'ribbon creep,' " Opinion, April 9 I remember the photos of Dwight Eisenhower and Army Gen. George C. Marshall from the school books and Time magazines of the 1950s. They were men who had to impress no one. They managed an army of conscripts and citizen soldiers who died by the thousands without night-vision goggles or body armor. It was an Army of Jeeps and M-1 rifles, but at least with substantial moral righteousness behind the violence. The generals then were not perfect, but they knew it and they had lost the need to wear a lot of decoration that flaunted the cost of the courage of other men. Ike went on to lead this country ably, if quietly, warning us against the military-industrial complex gaining so much power, and Marshall earned the gratitude of an entire generation of Europeans, including those we defeated.

The subject may be heaven, but keep your eyes on the ground when you walk into Evan Smith's "The Savannah Disputation," an Old Globe production playing in the round at the San Diego Museum of Art's Copley Auditorium. Designer Deb O's set -- a cozy Southern house -- is perched on hundreds of books. And while the Good Book is at the core of this promising little comedy, the play gets very lost on the way to spiritual clarity. Tart Southern Catholic spinster Mary (Nancy Robinette) and her sister, timid Margaret (Mikel Sarah Lambert)