homicide-erumpent
Notebook

E-SAPIs and Level 1 armor

March 20th, 2006 by Double Tap

We continue to do our inspections of the local vendors on the FOB. There was a problem with bribery, drugs and illicit alcohol getting onto the base, and we had to move against a couple of guys. One was a civilian KBR employee who was involved in illegal drugs. I know he got fired by KBR and sent home.

I’m leaving on R&R in the next couple of days, but I’m not really sure how great that’s going to be. Right now, I don’t even know where we are going to stay. I know I’m going to Qatar, but that’s all I know. I hear there’s drinking and lounging on the beach, plus some other activities, but I have no idea what the accommodations are like. My leave to the US isn’t until August, so this will be my only opportunity to get away for awhile. Hopefully, it will be a good time.

When we first got here, there was a shortage of HMMWVs, so you only used them for official business around here on the FOB. Now, it looks like we have enough HMMWVs in the unit to allow nearly everyone to have their own - which is nice. No more walking everywhere I go on the FOB. Generally, when a unit leaves and doesn’t need to take all of its vehicles, it ends up in our back yard. So, we get to snag them.

We also got the new E-SAPI plates. Those are the plates that go in our Individual Body Armor (IBA). Otherwise known as a bullet-proof vest. The older plates were effective at stopping bullets up to 7.62mm rifle bullets, but wouldn’t stop an armor-piercing round of the same caliber, so it’s good we’ve got them.

We also picked up one of the newer Level 1 armored HMMWVs. Actually, it’s on loan from one of the other units here and they gave us one of their pieces of crap. We found all sorts of issues - including the rear axle about to fall off. The good thing about it is the armor is built into the HMMWV, not bolted on like the Level II armored HMMWVs. They have a stronger suspension to handle the greater weight. Plus, it’s easier to drive. Really, we need two of them, since you can’t go anywhere off the FOB without two vehicles (in case one breaks down or gets hit) and it has to be a Level 1 HMMWV. That’s a recent requirement. They used to drive Level 2s all over Iraq until recently. Now, they are being converted to Level 1s whenever possible.

You can really see the difference between the branches here. Actually, we only have Air Force and Army here, but the way they approach problems is very different. First, the Air Force doesn’t understand that they can take care of problems on their own, rather than simply ask “who’s going to do this?” or “where’s the work order?” GI Party is a foreign concept to them. When it comes to securing their own areas, one army soldier quipped, “Army soldiers can use their own weapons, and the Air Force can LEARN how to use them”. That got lots of laughs amongst us Army types.

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