Well, not me, just the eldest, and I have to say that plate rig's pretty heavy so I gave him a hand as he packed up to return to the Fort. He's all geared up for deployment in a month or so but ticked off about the state of his battalion's Humvees.
"Dad, they go back to the '90s, a lot of 'em are gonna end up as parts vehicles when we get there." I thought about this, "So you'll be useless as a mechanized force?" No, they'll use the working kit of the units they're embedded with and the broken become supply.
In the midst of this knotty supply and logistics issue an experienced solutions provider phoned in and I explained the problem. He thought for a moment, "We had the same thing in Gulf War I. We were running WWII Jeeps, seriously, Jeeps, because the Navy was cheap. I like Jeeps, but nothing has changed."
I passed that on to kid and he felt better. Soldiers like tradition.
Your Pal,
LSP
