Congressmen blast Marines over helmet
padding
By
Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition,
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Bid for better helmets gets
boost from Cher
WASHINGTON — Cher: Sexy ’60s and ’70s
hitmaker, ’80s Oscar winner …
and leading proponent of full
concussion protection in
military headgear?
The singer-actress has become an
unexpected and prominent
spokesperson for Operation
Helmet, a charity providing free
padded inserts to military
headgear.
In
the past year, she has donated
more than $130,000 to the effort
and surprised its founders with
several unsolicited calls to
C-SPAN lauding the groups’
efforts to help troops, speaking
about the importance of giving
troops the best protection
possible.
On
Thursday, she sat quietly in the
gallery of the House Armed
Services Committee, declining to
testify out of concern it would
overshadow the charity’s
efforts.
But she did bring with her a
host of entertainment and
mainstream news crews —
reporters from the newsmagazine
“Extra!” don’t regularly attend
the military equipment hearings
— as well as a team of U.S.
Capitol Police and some curious
Washington tourists.
Committee members applauded her
good intentions and the
publicity that comes with it.
“It does help draw attention to
this critical issue,” said Rep.
Steve Israel, D-N.Y. “I would
imagine if we were having a
hearing on this issue without
the presence of a celebrity we
would not have the number of
photographers that are with us
today.”
During the event several members
referenced Cher’s late husband
Sonny Bono, who sat on the armed
services committee during his
political career, and his work
to provide troops with
state-of-the-art equipment.
None made jokes about her
infamous 1991 video for “If I
Could Turn Back Time,” where she
joined sailors aboard the
battleship USS Missouri wearing
… well, not much.
Operation Helmet founder Bob
Meaders said his group wasn’t
searching for a celebrity
spokesperson, but they consider
themselves lucky that Cher has
decided to get involved in their
work.
“She says to us, ‘It’s not about
me’ … but she’s a great PR
person for us,” he said. “So
many people say to us they would
have donated sooner if they had
known about us, and because of
her now they do.”
— Leo Shane |
WASHINGTON — Marine commanders told
Congress on Thursday that they need
further research on whether upgrading
their helmets would benefit their
troops, even though the Army has already
added a padded lining to soldiers’
headgear based on its studies.
That position drew frustrated gasps
from members of the House Armed Services
Committee, who held a special hearing to
investigate the services’ protective
equipment and why more than 6,000
Marines had requested Army-style helmet
inserts from a private charity over the
past 2½ years.
“We have two sets of troops on the
same ground fighting the same enemy with
significantly different head
protection,” said Rep. Curt Weldon,
R-Pa., chairman of the committee’s
tactical air and land forces
subcommittee. “You have to understand
the confusion that we have here. If
there’s a different system that some
troops want, we want them to have it.”
Currently soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan are equipped with the
Advanced Combat Helmet, a smaller and
lighter version of the traditional Army
Kevlar helmet. Marines are outfitted
with the Marine Corps Lightweight
Helmet.
The main difference between the two
is the size — the lightweight helmet
covers about 15 percent more of the head
— and the internal structure. The ACH
has impact-resistant padding lining the
inner shell, while the lightweight
leaves empty space between the head and
helmet.
Operation Helmet, a nonprofit based
in Texas, has sent out more than 8,700
padding insert kits to mostly Marines in
Iraq and Afghanistan who’ve requested
the padding, which offers extra blast
protection.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s
director of force development, said his
service shifted to the padded helmets —
similar to the style worn by NFL players
— based on Army research that shows it
provides greater protection against head
trauma.
But Maj. Gen. William Catto,
commander of Marine Corps Systems
Command, told Congress that the Marines
have not yet compiled the same
concussion research, and their main
concern is still the helmet’s ability to
stop ballistic rounds. In that area, the
lightweight helmet provides more
protection than the ACH, because of its
size.
He said an August 2005 report by the
U.S. Army Aeromedical Research
Laboratory showing superior performance
by the ACH for impact protection doesn’t
answer the question of whether the ACH
meets the Marines standards for
ballistic protection. If future studies
show it is superior for both ballistic
and crash injuries, he said the Marines
could begin using that style.
“But right now we just don’t know the
facts,” Catto said.
Committee members responded that the
Marines before now should have at least
fully researched the ACH specifications
and the padding, which costs less than
$100.
“I am stunned that our military
doesn’t have the foresight to see the
need for an insert like this,” said Rep.
Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. “It stuns me that
the Department of Defense hasn’t taken
the opportunity to improve the helmets
they have out there. There’s a clear
choice here: We either protect the lives
of our soldiers or we don’t send them.”
Speakes said he was unaware if the
helmet testing data had been made
available to the Marines. Catto said his
staff had seen no data weighing the
ballistic and concussion advantages of
internal padding.
Meanwhile, the founder of Operation
Helmet, former Navy corpsman Bob
Meaders, told the committee that his
group’s research with their supply
company, Oregon Aero, found that adding
his charity’s protective inserts to the
lightweight helmet can reduce the impact
of a blast on a Marines’ head by nearly
60 percent.
He added that he’d be happy to share
the medical information his group has
gathered with any of the services.
“I would love for them to take this
over, so I could quit and go play some
golf,” Meaders said. “But if we can save
even one life, that’s why we do it.”
Operation Helmet has raised about
$800,000 to buy inserts for troops
currently serving overseas. Their
largest donor, singer-actress Cher,
attended the hearing and met with
congressmen beforehand to discuss the
helmet issues.
Army plans call for all troops to
have the ACH by September 2007. Catto
said the ACH is approved for use by
certain Marines, like reconnaissance
patrols and parachute missions, because
of the need for higher crash protection.
Weldon told Catto he wants to see the
Marines’ study on the helmets finished
well before its scheduled September
completion.
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