Army strives to get better equipment, faster
| • | Soldiers often buy their own gear, report says |
| • | Illustration (opens in new window): Soldiers found some equipment faulty |
By John Diamond
USA Today
WASHINGTON — When Army Col. Mike Smith got the order to deploy to Afghanistan in 2001, he reached for his wallet. Smith wanted a pair of boots that could stand up to the rocky terrain, something he knew his Army-issue footwear wouldn't do.
Now Smith is a senior officer in the Army unit that equips front-line soldiers. He was not surprised when an internal "lessons learned" study of equipment used in the war in Iraq turned up a long list of gear so ill-regarded by soldiers that they spent their own money to modify or replace it.
The field investigation by the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier, where Smith works, found that soldiers spent their own money on extra pockets for their uniforms, better sights for their firearms, a more practical holster for their pistol, global-positioning-system units that outperform Army-issue equipment, tougher soles for their boots, and socks and underwear to keep cool in the desert.
"It has been a common practice," Smith said. "I've done it before I went over to Afghanistan. I certainly pulled out my wallet and bought some stuff, boots and things like that. You'll never reduce that to zero, but we want to get it as close to zero as we can."
A copy of the study, still in draft form, was obtained by USA Today. It details feedback from interviews with about 75 front-line soldiers in Iraq about a month after the fall of Baghdad. Interviews with hundreds more will be included in the more detailed final report.
The soldiers aren't reimbursed for their purchases, though in some cases, a unit commander might spend limited sums on an item deemed essential for an upcoming mission. Army officials said they had no data on how much a typical combat soldier spends on battlefield equipment.
The Army has surveyed its soldiers for years to find out how equipment is working in battle. But only recently have Congress and the Pentagon managed to change bureaucracy-heavy procurement rules so the Army can translate what it learns into action.
Embarrassed by the specter of soldiers dipping into their modest pay to equip themselves, the Army has responded with a "rapid fielding initiative" to get improved equipment to the battlefront as quickly as possible. Over the next four years, the Army is considering spending about $400 million on improvements.
A similar survey of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan spurred the Army to accelerate distribution of body armor, Wiley X sunglasses, Rhino GPS units and a special multitool device that is sort of a super pocketknife.
The report, written by Army Lt. Col. Jim Smith, no relation to his boss, recounted the enthusiastic reaction of soldiers to body armor. One crewman in an M-1 tank took some ribbing from comrades for wearing body armor inside the tank — until he was hit in the chest by an Iraqi bullet while he was half out of the turret firing the tank's machine gun.
The body armor absorbed the bullet, and the crewman — though knocked back into the turret by the bullet's impact — was fine. After that, other M-1 crewmen asked for similar protection, according to the report.
Reforms designed to streamline the way the military buys equipment have been long in coming. During his career, retired Army Col. Kenneth Allard headed a team that recommended that the Army make much more extensive use of commercial off-the-shelf purchases to equip its force. That recommendation was in 1994.
Perhaps no item is more important to the foot soldier than the combat boot — and the ones that went to Iraq were not popular.
"Soldiers were generally dissatisfied with the performance of the desert combat boot," particularly those made by Altama Footwear of Atlanta.
"The soles were too soft and were easily damaged by the terrain," the draft report states. Some soldiers had the boots re-soled with tougher tread, but with mixed results.
Col. Smith said the Army is also looking "very closely" at soldiers' complaints that the springs in the magazines of their standard-issue Beretta 9mm pistols did not always have enough strength to feed a new round into the firing chamber.
Army experts believe the problem stems from the fine Iraqi sand, which could have gotten into the magazine. But they have not ruled out the need for a redesigned ammunition clip, Smith said.
Representatives of Altama and Beretta did not respond to requests for comment.
