Yes, you heard correctly. New undergarments for US Troops in Afghanistan, and they don’t make them any better than this. As Al Kamen reports in a recent Washington Post articled entitled:
Ballistic Underwear for Troops in Afghanistan
“An Army marches on its stomach,” said Napoleon , or maybe it was Frederick the Great . But the Marines in Afghanistan will soon, one would hope very soon, be marching more safely — in their new ballistic underwear, designed to better protect them from injuries from improvised explosive devices.
The Pentagon this month put out a rush order solicitation, spotted by our colleague Walter Pincus, for “27,500 ballistic undergarments” for $2 million, noting that “ballistic underwear is currently being used by British forces” in Afghanistan “and they have significantly less injuries” to their privates as a result.
The new undergarments are made of a double-weave silk, and are by no means bullet-proof, but they do protect against small particles and fragments from minor blasts. A small addition that could easily be the difference between life and death.
Personally, I think this is pretty cool. If it’s actually going to better protect our troops, and bring more of them back safely, then I fully support the addition to the military ensemble. But then again, maybe this is just another example of the type of government spending we’re trying to avoid in order to bring ourselves out of massive debt. Does pricey underwear really make that big of a difference on top of all the other protective gear our troops already wear (Just to be clear, I’m no expert in this area- just hypothesizing)? Yeah, $2 million is a small drop in the pool that is the US budget, but still…2 million bucks is 2 million bucks, right?
What do you think?
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