Photos: Surviving a Humvee rollover

I know this is supposed to be encouraging, but I don't think many soldiers die from the fright of being rolled over. They die because their Humvee is blown in two.

It's a little like handing a spoon to a soldier and saying, "Here. Carry this in battle. It will protect you!" More lies for the home-front.

How familiar are you with the Army, or any of our armed forces? Certainly, a direct hit from an IED is going to cause massive damage, injuries and death. This is not the purpose of the training. The fact is, many deaths are caused from rolling into drainage ditches and canals. The military operates on repetitive training. You do things until it becomes second nature because under fire, you don't have the luxury of time to contemplate your options when your vehicle is upside down under water or the vehicle is rolled over on its side and some f***er is firing an AK at you. Other roll over scenarios are from plain ol' car accidents because on a CONOPS you generally drive like a bat outta hell. There are certainly plenty of cases where the employment of the IED is non-optimal and the result is a roll-over and relatively minor damage to the vehicle.

As for lies for the home front, your lack of understanding of how the military operates is stunning. Money spent on these simulators are based on experiences from the field and ways that we can save more lives. Are we saying we will save all? Hell no. But if that training saves even one life, what is it worth to that wife, mother, father, the children?

No soldier ever believes that this is going to save them from a direct hit from an IED. What it does is prepare them for the instances where they survive the initial incident so they don't die from a secondary effect. The MRAP program appears to be the best options at the moment for security when you have to travel on the ground.

You may or may not be right, but these were the same guys that sent forces into the fray with Hummers with no armer at all. Sent the poor guys looking for anything to improvise as armor, while they dragged their feet getting better armor to them.

They have lied, lied, and lied to us. And then lied some more. Do you expect me to believe anything that comes from the top??? Cannon fodder!!!

I remember vividly in Desert Storm, Bush senior standing up in front of the American public and boasting how many SKUDs were shot down by the Patriot missile, when in fact not a single one had been shot down! Again, I say, cannon fodder!!!

What good does it do to keep the truth away from our troops... Except maybe to keep some ambitious Lieutenant from getting his ass fragged by his own troops!!!

Where the hell are you getting your information? You've been lied to by a horribly biased source. Do you question what you read, see or hear? You certainly readily accept whatever information you get as long as it supports your political views. But by golly, if it is from the government, you automatically dismiss it as lies. Grow up. The amount of misinformation that you get from supposedly reliable sources like CNN etc is huge. You have no idea of how bad it can be until you are down-range, witness to an event, and then you get on the internet or watch satellite TV and see how much the truth is either intentionally or unintentionally mangled. I've seen it first-hand. I spent nine months in Afghanistan and witness to several events that were horribly mis-reported in the mainstream media.

The perceptions created by the reporting in the mainstream media are not representative of the whole picture on the ground. Anybody returning from deployment can tell you that.

"but these were the same guys that sent forces into the fray with Hummers with no armer at all. Sent the poor guys looking for anything to improvise as armor, while they dragged their feet getting better armor to them."

Who dragged their feet? Certainly nobody within the DoD. Those are our comrades in arms being mangled by a constantly evolving threat. You can bet your candy-ass that people at all levels were doing what they could to beef-up protections. And that included people at the unit level who did what they could with what they had at the time. Which may have been 1/4" plate welded to doors etc. Unfortunately, analysis has shown that in some cases, improvised armor actually worsened injuries.

You seemed to forget that DoD also employed many M1A1 tanks, tracked Bradley fighting vehicles, Stryker multi-wheeled armored vehicles, etc.

As for cannon fodder, nobody in the chain of command is that callous with the lives our our men and women. Your stereotypes are so trite it isn't even funny. Ambitious lieutenants? You watch way too much Hollywood crap.

Maybe you should sign up and find out for yourself what is reality and what is hype?