NYT/AP: Troops Armor Up With ("jerry-rigged") Bulletproof Glass

[DeepModem Mom]

Troops Armor Up With Bulletproof Glass
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 1, 2006

RAMADI, Iraq (AP) -- The 21-year-old gunner was standing atop the turret of a Humvee called Frankenstein's Monster when the bomb exploded on the ground beside him, sending a wave of sizzling shrapnel and ball-bearings toward his head.

Knocked down inside his vehicle by the blast, Spc. Richard Sugai regained consciousness minutes later and realized he was lucky to be alive. His savior: a glass cocoon of 2-inch thick bulletproof windshields he had welded around the top of his turret three days earlier.

Troops mockingly call the modification ''Pope Glass'' because it brings to mind the ballistic-proof glass box the late Pope John Paul II traveled in after being wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt.

The jerry-rigged protection has become a signature on the turrets of Humvees across the main U.S. base in insurgent-plagued Ramadi, where troops are adding ever-more armor to protect against snipers, small-arms fire and roadside bombs....

***

The Vermont National Guard's Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 172nd Armor, became the first to start using the so-called Pope Glass after one of its support soldiers, 44-year-old Spc. Scott Betit, added on his own with a colleague's help after his initial run through Ramadi in late July....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Pope-Glass.html

[DRoseDARs]

1. And the Pentagon will probably tell them to stop THIS practice too...

...considering they ordered soldiers to stop using family-bought bulletproof vests/armor and instead use the magical invisible personal forcefields being provided by the Pentagon. Their existance is sooo super-secret that even the troops don't know whether they're wearing them or not ... until they're dead or maimed.

[formercia]

2. They will turn it over to a contractor who will make a fortune.

Our troops are too valuable to be spending time altering their vehicles.

Back in the early eighties, I had an idea for a simple adapter to interface two units of electronic equipment. I couldn't get approval or help in having it made so I went to Radio Shark and purchased the components out of pocket. It worked so well that management issued a no bid contract to make 5 units at a cost of $75K. My total expenditure was $20. Go figure.

[truthisfreedom]

3. the Jerrys were the Germans. let's call it Yankee-rigged.

get real.

[saigon68]

4. JURY RIGGED

JURY RIGGED

From Robert Williams: “I’d seen the phrase jerry rigged and assumed it was related to WWII and the efforts of German soldiers to keep things running by patching things together. However I’ve also seen it spelled jury rigged. Where does this expression come from?”

It’s much older than World War Two. In the form jury rigged it’s from the days of sailing ships and dates from the early 1600s, if not earlier. It refers to a mast which is makeshift or a temporary contrivance, perhaps because the original was lost or damaged in a storm. Nobody knows for sure where it comes from. It has been suggested that it’s a shortening of “injury-rigged”, though that sounds to me like something invented well after the event. Another suggestion often made is that it comes from the old French ajurie, “aid, assistance”.

Link: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jur1.htm

[bemildred]

5. Thank you. nt