Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Miracle armor? Or is the situation on the ground much different? Apply Occam's Razor.
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I don't know how to apply Occam's Razor to that situation. Troops routinely describe bullets being deflected by their armor. Bullets that were almost always fatal in Nam.
Meanwhile, friends served on the Cambodian border. Lieutenant confiscated their M-16s. They didn't need them. One used his M-16 to go home. No need for guns on the Cambodian border was proof we were winning? So what happened?
The other irony is booby traps. American soldiers in Nam were mostly wounded or killed by bobby traps. In Iraq, roadside bombs. Most caught in a roadside bomb survive with at worst minor injuries. Less death. But the mindset of the [Iraqi] people is just as obvious as in Nam.
American facilities in Nam often came under attack until Saigon was eventually made stable. Ironically, the safest place in Iraq - the Green Zone - again came under sustained shelling again this week. You don't go outside even in the Green Zone without protective clothing. We call this getting better? Deja vue Nam.
We measured victory in Nam by body counts and fatalities. Using those numbers, we were clearly winning the war. Using Iraq fatalities proves same? At what point do we learn the lessons of history? How does that statistic prove ‘light at the end of the tunnel’?