Medal of Honor awarded

TimAPNY · **Posted:** Mon Apr 04, 2005 1:01 pm

I'm not really sure what to say about it. He seems to fit well with the 2 others who received it in the last 30 years. Thanks to Men like him and those with him we are free to enjoy peace and freedom here at home. Thank you to all those severing!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/04/medal. ... index.html

airnutz · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 1:29 pm

Thanks Tim, for honoring 1st Sgt. Paul Smith. My condolences to his loved
ones and survivors and best of luck to his team-members upon their safe
return.

The details of Sgt. Smith's death, although inspiring strikes a chord of
needlessness. Something has occurred to me, but which I have
never been able to put my finger on..has finally become clear.
We see our young men standing duty "poking out" of the tops of Humvees,
M113's, etc.

Why is there no protective armour for the upper-torso/head
protection for these young men?? The earliest models of machine-gun
weaponry were provided with an armoured shield in front of the guns
in order to protect the operator...over time these were dispensed with
for the sake of mobility and improved forward vision.

1st Sgt. Smith suffered a fatal headshot while manning a .50cal MG atop
an M-113. With all of our splendid technology, why is there no simple
ballistic-glass shield offering these boys some form of defense in the most
perilous moments? If it comes down to cost...how about a steel-armor
shield with replaceable ballistic-glass inserts?? If the operator feels he
needs more vision in battle, how about giving him the option of coming
up from behind the armour in order to command his situation???

Just a thought..

m50a1ontos · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:02 pm

As we speak ACAV gunshields are being fitted to most all the M-113 series. They've been in stock since Vietnam...only NOW are they getting issued. I think the individual who ordered them left behind is in for a bumpy career road...

tom d. friedman · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:02 pm

nbc news w/ brian williams did a top notch story on him last night!! very well told, not dripping red white & blue propaganda, but very moving & to the point. god bless mr smith!! tom

airnutz · **Posted:** Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:43 am

m50a1, are you a former or present gunner? If so, what improvements or
requirements could you suggest over the "current" ACAV gunshields? As
for the forgetful supply guy... I hope he wasn't a "little guy". This war was
"slapped together" by much bigger fish!

m50a1ontos · **Posted:** Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:38 pm

Nope, never been in Acavs but have spoken to a few that were...

http://www.afvnews.ca/cgi-bin/web-bbs/webbbs_config.pl

Some pretty good info pops up on this board of the armored sort. I remember an article about the gun sheilds a few months ago...that some "big Weenie" decided to leave all that vietnam era crap home...boy was he mistaken!

airnutz · **Posted:** Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:18 pm

Amen to that, m50 !! Thanks for the link!

airnutz · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:17 pm

I was talking to an Army vet yesterday and he shed some light on the
Vietnam era M113's. Remember when the Bradley vehicle debacle
was going on with it's huge cost over-runs? According to him, the Army
at the time had budgeted funds to add an armoured copola for the M113's
50 cal. When the Bradley cost over-runs occurred, the funds for the 113's
improvements were consumed as well.

The Army kicked the M113 back to National Guard and Reserve Units as a training vehicle which would probably never see duty other than crowd-control or disaster relief type missions. That is, until the force requirements cutbacks of the 90's thrust the Reserve and Guard Units
into frontline deployment scenarios..the rest is history...

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