posted @ 10:49...

Plenty has been discussed about uparmored vehicles. Pretty much all the vehicles we use nowadays are uparmored. It's the Soldiers coming north from Kuwait who don't always have uparmored HMWWV's.

The newest trend here is... uparmored people! Actually many Soldiers & Marines in Iraq already routinely wear kevlar helmets & IBA (body armor) everywhere they go. But in light of the events at the dining facility (DFAC) in Mosul, and considering the significant American holiday coming up... We're now wearing our kevlars & IBA. They routinely check ID's at the dining facility, but after the Mosul attack the other day, they're putting on an extra vigilant layer of security on everything... even going so far as to make sure we have our armor plates installed in the IBA. They're also using one of those metal detection wands, like you see in the airport.

I heard someone complain about having to wear the body armor and the hassle of security at the DFAC, saying something like, "This is great, Merry Christmas to us! What a gift: we get to wear this crap..." yadda yadda, etc.

Okay, call it a gift from Uncle Sam. Regarding the kevlar & body armor: The gift here is that you don't die if something blows up. Regarding security at the DFAC: The gift is that maybe we'll catch someone who's trying to blow us up before they get to do it.