Listen guys, I'm a reporter doing a story that relates to the Stryker.  In September of 2006, the organization that has been awarded 6 billion dollars to develop ways to stop IED attacks reported to Congress that the Stryker has NEVER been effected by an IED.  The story I am writing is about the misappropriation of defense funds for programs such as these with no accountability, as well as the fact that about 90 billion dollars has gone to pork in the defense budget.  So the fact is, that body armor or IED detection equipment you aren't getting is a result of defense money being syphoned into museums, parks, holiday celebrations etc. 

Any information that you can give is great and you can remain anonymous if need be.

Who are you? Do you have any Military experience and if so who, what, when, where? Please post a proper introduction here http://www.paratrooper.net/commo/Forum89-1.aspx.

"The sergeant is the Army." - General Dwight D. Eisenhower

USPMA #11, CVMA #1271 NH 5-1

My own memory was about how my own high-tech Air Force had all this wonderful technology that we rarely saw because of the cost and unit budget contraints.  If these guys are creating some great new way to track and stop IED's, thats great, but if it never makes it into the field in Iraq asap because of cost, I think that 6 billion would be better spent supporting the troops and tracking down IED manufacturers.  IED's are a problem today and that does not seem to be a major focus of JIEDDO, despite the fact that they were created to fight IED's now.

JIEDDO has requested 500 million for fiscal year 08-09.  They have allocated 200 million of it for IED Defeat programs and 300 million for staff/infrastructure.  They only have a staff of 59, and I would have thought that the 6 billion would have helped alot to create infrastructure already. 

On top of that, Washington today is calling JIEDDO a failure, and I started investigating this story before today.  If these guys are pocketing the money, or using it to secure equipment that people on this board says is a POS, then that puts soldiers in the field at risk.  These guys ordered 308 new Strykers last July because they could defeat IED.  I believed it until I read some of your posts.  So do the Strykers work or not?  The way I see it, there are three possibilities.  Either the posts here are innacurate or the guys at JIEDDO are wrong, or worse yet, the negative posts here on the Stryker are on the money and JIEDDO and General Dynamics are in bed together.  I'm just trying to find out which is the truth.

"I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman!"  -Homer Simpson

http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3344

Nothing i have said here couldn't be found with a Google search.  And if you read yesterday's news, you would see these guys from JIEDDO are in trouble already.

Also, we have a couple of people here that have served in the sandbox and worked with the Stryker units, but we don't have any regular members that post here who have been assigned to one of the Stryker brigades.  Most of our serving members are in Airborne or other light units, or are in the NG/Reserves.  Most of us don't like the Stryker but have no first hand knowledge of the performance.

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI.  One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS

Personally, I think that if you are worried about OPSEC, posting the 20 or some odd posts about the vehicle's weaknesses on an open forum here is much more of a danger than me asking if government purchases reported by the Department of Defense make sense. 

If they are working, then the guys in Iraq should get them or whatever they need and that should be JIEDDO's goal.  The fact that I prefer that the money go for equipment for the troops to reduce unnecessary casualties today as opposed to billions spent to see IED's from space ten years from now makes me somehow anti-troop in your eyes, that is really too bad. 

We all know how hard it is for units to get the equipment they need.  Spending billions to create new equipment you also can't get your hands on wont stop the IED problem today.  JIEDDO lost its way trying to provide giant answers to the problem rather than operational improvements that would work in the field today.  The six billion should have been used to buy equipment for troops.  Period.