Iraq / Afghanistan - the cost of a Dead Soldier is less than a Dead Officer

An article on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles at the Globalsecurity.org site revealed this fascinating piece of accountancy / analysis and military calculus ...

Research by the Math and Statistics branch of the Naval Safety Center incicates that the financial costs associated to casualties should be adjusted upward no less than 250% from its current 1988 baseline to account for the real dollar costs of care and replacement. Adjusted enlisted casualties average $500,000 dollars while officers, depending upon their military occupation range from US$1 Mn. to US$2 Mn. each.

This means the average light tactical vehicle with one officer and four enlisted personnel is protecting 2.5 million dollars of the DOD's budget. This $2.5 million is real O&M dollars. The argument that "we can't afford armored vehicles" is specious. The opposite is true, at 2.5 million dollars of precious cargo each, the Corps cannot afford UN-armored vehicles.

Elswhere it says,"Current operations have proven that USMC unarmored ground vehicles are unsuitable to support combat operations."

Update - see comments. UK Channel 4 in Thursday 12th July showed a film of a Guradian correspondents experience witha Stryker brigade in Baghdad. This still shows them dragging a body from a car at which they had just shot to stop the car.

The driver was dead.

The narrative of thwe soldiers in the film - who had done 15 months service in Iraq represented much the same views as those in the Nation article.