MRAP is expensive, if nothing else ... let's hope it protects our soldiers!

Well, it looks as though more of the Mine Resistant Armored Protected (MRAP) vehicles will be funded and "on their way" (to Iraq) soon enough to maybe save an American soldier or two. No, the vehicles that are already there are not being used for "standard" missions--the ones being handled by humvees and (God forbid) jeeps--but that might end as soon as 2008, according to the testimony I heard on C-Span this week when I got tired of listening to the speeches in the US Senate related to ending the same war in Iraq.

But, if Congress is unable to stop this God forsaken war in Iraq, at least fewer American boys and girls will have to die in the years and decades ahead as we continue to fatten the coffers of our defense contractors and oil companies.

Just for the sake of providing you with some numbers to remember, there are 18,000 humvees in Iraq and the military has ordered only about one-third that many of the shiny new MRAPs ... as of what I was able to glean from the TV at the foot of my bed in the Super 8 Motel off of Highway 101.

To give you an idea why they are so expensive, note the differences between the Navy version shown above and the one shown below to be used by the Army and US Marines (shown below).

As for me personally, I like the one below--especially for running up and down the beach during the hours that the teenagers seem to be in control here in Ocean Shores--although the one above would doubtless be more helpful in cleaning my back yard in late autumn and early spring.