No. 767-03
IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2003
DoD Identifies Army
Casualties
The Department of Defense announced
today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi
Freedom. Both soldiers were killed in action on October 18, 2003, in
Taza, Iraq, when enemy forces ambushed their patrol using rocket
propelled grenades and small arms fire. Killed were:
First Lieutenant David R. Bernstein,
24, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
Private First Class John D. Hart, 20,
of Bedford, Massachusetts
The soldiers were assigned to 1st
Battalion (Airborne), 508th Infantry Regiment, 173rd Infantry Brigade,
Camp Ederle, Italy.
The incident is under investigation.
Iraq death spurs push for Humvee armor
By Ross Kerber
Courtesy of the Boston Globe
8 March 2004
In the days before his death, Private
First Class John D. Hart called his father to tell him how unsafe he
felt riding around Iraq in a Humvee that lacked bulletproof shielding or
even metal doors.
It would be the last conversation
Brian T. Hart would have with his 20-year-old son. On October 18, 2004,
near Kirkuk, Saddam Hussein loyalists ambushed his son's Army convoy,
killing two. A hail of bullets felled the Bedford High School graduate
while he fought from his Humvee.
"When he died, all his ammunition had
been spent," the unit commander wrote in a letter to Hart's parents.
"Your son gave everything he had for the safety of others. . . . As a
commander, I struggle to find words that adequately capture the depth to
which we honor Private First Class Hart."
For Brian Hart, a 44-year-old Bedford
businessman, his only son's last words have come to haunt him,
especially after learning that other families who lost loved ones in
Humvee attacks had complained to the Pentagon about the lack of armor in
vehicles.
In fact, an average sport utility
vehicle found on US roads provides more protection than Hart's Humvee.
"He would have been better off in a Toyota Highlander," the father said.
Turning grief into action, Hart
cobbled together a loose network of soldiers, their relatives,
politicians, and defense contractors to pressure the military to beef up
its Humvees. Since his son's death, Hart has seen results: Since
January, the Marine Corps has ordered $9 million worth of bulletproof
Humvee door panels from Foster-Miller Inc. of Waltham, and last week the
Army said it would double its order of heavily armored Humvees from its
contractor.
More Humvees in Iraq still need extra
protection, but Hart's headway is remarkable for how quickly he has
navigated the byzantine military-procurement system. Senator Edward M.
Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, whom Hart enlisted in his cause,
believes the father's success can come only from a parent who "feels a
desperate sense of loss that he doesn't want it to happen to another
parent."
Most versions of the military
transport known as the Humvee, short for High-Mobility Multipurpose
Wheeled Vehicle, use body panels made from thin aluminum or fiberglass.
That reduces weight but stops few bullets.
Military planners thought tanks or
armored personnel carriers would be used for combat patrols. But there
are not enough to go around in Iraq, where American troops drive more
than 10,000 Humvees, according to the Army.
Last spring, the Army sent more than
500 "up-armored" Humvees made by Armor Holdings Inc.'s O'Gara-Hess &
Eisenhardt unit in Fairfield, Ohio. These vehicles add about 3,800
pounds of bulletproof windshields and steel plating to the 6,000-pound
Humvee made by AM General LLC of South Bend, Indiana. Other Humvees are
reinforced with lighter, add-on steel armor kits.
The protection became more valuable
last summer, as the guerrilla warfare began. Patrols faced more attacks
and land mines, making reinforced vehicles critical.
How they would get more, quickly, was
unclear, since the Pentagon's original 2005 budget request included 818
up-armored Humvees. An unarmored Humvee costs about $75,000, while an
armored one costs about twice as much. Of the total number of Humvees in
Iraq, just over 2,000 are fully armored, according to an Army tally,
about half of what it says it needs.
Designers at Foster-Miller, a closely
held engineering company, proposed a quick fix: use armor panels made
from ceramic and Kevlar that could be attached to Humvee doors with
Velcro. The idea is less unusual than it sounds. Since the early 1990s,
the company has used fabric strips made or designed by Velcro USA Inc.
of Manchester, N.H., to attach similar panels inside the cockpits of
military transport planes.
While the Army tested Foster-Miller's
product last fall, the service still has not ordered any. Other
companies that proposed similar add-on armor kits complained Army
officials were not interested.
The Army acknowledges it has been slow
to fortify its Humvees, but says it is moving as fast as it can. Acting
Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee told a Senate Armed Services
Committee last week that when US troops first arrived in Iraq last
spring, "there wasn't a feeling that all Humvees should be up-armored,"
partly because the extra weight slowed them. By June, the Army saw that
its Humvees needed more protection from the flood of land mines.
"We realize that all soldiers were
being exposed to these kinds of attacks and that convoys, in particular,
were exposed," Brownlee said. "That's when we began to ramp up to
provide those as soon as we could."
The effort was not fast enough to save
John Hart.
As a teenager, the strapping Hart knew
he wanted to be in the Army and prepared himself by joining Bedford
High's rifle team and Junior ROTC program.
Even his teenage mischief had a
military bent. Longtime friend Ben Chambers recalled sneaking out of
their houses at 2 a.m. to plaster Army stickers around town.
Hart's mother, Alma, sent his name to
a Navy recruiter, thinking that service might be safer. But Chambers
said Hart was determined to wind up as an Army soldier "on the ground
actually doing something as opposed to sitting behind a desk. He wanted
to be the person making a difference."
After enlisting in September 2002,
Hart joined his unit, the 173d Airborne Brigade, in northern Iraq last
summer. A trained paratrooper, he was in several firefights and earned a
Combat Infantryman Badge.
Others in his unit have since told his
father how they also felt vulnerable on patrol in Humvees. One was
Specialist Joshua Sams, the driver of Hart's Humvee who was injured
during the ambush.
In a telephone interview, Sams said he
was not sure whether armor would have saved Hart, because he was riding
in the open bed of the Humvee when the squad came under fire. Sams said
armor would have protected another soldier, Lieutenant David R.
Bernstein, 24, who died in the attack.
A graduate of the US Military Academy
at West Point, N.Y., Bernstein bled to death after being hit by a bullet
that tore through the Humvee, Sams said. "You could see the hole" in the
vehicle, Sams said.
On Oct. 19, Brian and Alma Hart woke
to a 6 a.m. knock at the door at the family's Bedford home. A policeman,
a local priest, and an Army officer delivered the news.
At the time, the family was scheduled
to move to Illinois, where Brian Hart was to start a new job as an
executive at a drug wholesaler. The family remained in Massachusetts,
fearing a move would be too stressful, and Hart began a local job
search. He has devoted much of his time to researching armored vehicles.
Working the Internet and phones daily,
Hart learned about more soldiers killed in unarmored Humvees and which
defense contractors made add-on armor for the vehicles. He also became
an outspoken critic, appearing on national radio shows, granting
newspaper interviews, and making trips to meet with politicians in
Washington, D.C.
After his son was buried at Arlington
National Cemetery, Hart took up the issue with Kennedy, who attended the
service. Kennedy said he had heard concerns about Humvees, but embraced
the issue after meeting with the Harts. Of the 18 soldiers killed in
Iraq who were either Massachusetts residents or who have next of kin in
the state, six died in unarmored Humvees or trucks, according to a count
by Kennedy's office as of mid-January.
Hart touched base with others in
Washington, including Democratic Representatives John Murtha of
Pennsylvania and Brian Baird of Washington. Other politicians got
involved after hearing concerns from their constituents.
They, in turn, began to contact Army
officials about the Humvee armor and why more units did not have it. At
a Senate hearing in November, Brownlee, the acting secretary of the
Army, said the service had ordered as many up-armored vehicles as its
contractors could produce, but that it would take until mid-2005 to
deliver them.
That seemed like a long time to Hart.
He went to the Web and learned that the armor makers were not at full
production. Later, a representative from O'Gara-Hess confirmed that.
Hart took those details to Kennedy's office.
Armed with that information, the
senator urged the Army to speed its approval and acquisition process.
Under pressure, the Army tested bulletproof door panels from
Foster-Miller, the Waltham defense contractor, making them ready for the
Marine Corps to buy in January.
"The political questions raised the
profile of the issue," said Doug Thomson, business development manager
at Foster-Miller.
A major breakthrough came last week,
when Brownlee unveiled plans to double orders of heavily armored
Humvees, from 220 to 450 a month.
While a good start, Brian Hart said,
he hardly calls it a victory. He still plans to spend much of his time
working the phones to make sure the plans get fully funded.
"It's an obligation," Hart said.
"Pretty much an obligation from a father to his son to try to protect
his friends."
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