Something We Must Address For The Soldiers

I believe it is important now that we have a new administration coming in along with a newly empowered congress that we modernize the equipment of soldiers in the field. If we are to field a modern military and deploy our brave young men and women it is not too much to ask the we give the best equipment available. I'm not talking about making them a more gruesome killing machine they are already the best fighting force in the world, but when there guns jamming in the middle of gun fights and our troops using out of date body armor we should be embarrassed. This is not the time to go out spending on anything but when it comes to our soldiers this is one issue we should be cheap on.


I want to quickly explain what are soldiers are dealing with is a forty plus year old weapons system (assault rifle) that uses a direct gas tube to cycle through ammunition. When a bullet is fired the weapon redirects the propellant gas to push back the bolt and reload the rifle. The gas used to cycle the weapon is very hot and very clean meaning in perfect conditions the firearm needs to be cleaned very often to insure reliability. Now put that gun in desert conditions with the dust making it's way into the weapon, now combine the dust and dirt with the hot gasses heating up the internal components and you will get a gun waiting to fail on you. Think we can find something better, well what if I told you our military spent more than 30 million to find a solution and found it but they are still using the Colt M4 and M16 a forty plus year system.


In the Fall of 2007 the Heckler & Koch XM8, Fabric Nationale SCAR, Heckler & Koch 416, and the current Military issue Colt M4 were in a dust test. The H&K XM8 is the firearm the US military spent More than 30 million developing to replace the Colt M4. In the dust test all of the weapons were put in the same conditions and fired 60,000 bullets, they were judged by how many stoppages each weapon had. The XM8 had 127 stoppages, the FN SCAR had 226, the H&K 416 had 233, and the Colt M4 came in last with 882 stoppages that is nearly 7 times worse than the XM8. The military has said it would cost too much to move to a new weapons system and the soldiers feel fine with the M4. I think if you were to talk to any veteran that when a gun jams on a soldier it can often cost them their lives, so what should really be the cost we pay.


Our military has used the same line when it comes to the body armor issued the troops and the bottom line is that we as people must do better than that for our loved ones we send into harms way. We have new leadership in Washington and I believe with all the issues we must address this one must not slip through the cracks.