Here's your Diploma, and here's your Armor Plated Vest. Good Luck!

I'm not sure whether to laugh or to weep. 

Graduating 8th grade class gifted bulletproof backpack plates before heading to high school - Story | WTXF: CHADDS FORD, Pa. (WTXF) - Local students have been outfitted with ‘ballistic shields’ for their backpacks as they get ready to head to high school next year. FOX 29’s Bruce Gordon was at St. Cornelius in Chadds Ford Monday as graduating 8th grade students were given the bulletproof plates, all thanks to a local company. St. Cornelius is located in just the kind of quiet, almost idyllic setting that we used to think made schools immune to violent acts like mass shootings.

Protecting students or instilling fear?  I don't know if it's a good idea or ... what.

Whether this is a mechanism which will instill "Fear of Guns" on impressionable adolescents, or will protect them in case of another horrible School Shooting .. well perhaps it will save at least one life.

On the other hand, having armed protection in schools might have the same effect, without making the students feel more like targets.   The bad thing about this is that these teens will feel like targets for the rest of their lives.

Ultimately, this is a silent acceptance by "Responsible Adults" that their charges have no better way to protect themselves, other than to live in fear and cower at the sound of gunshots.

War Story Alert!

On December 28, 1969, I was assigned to a "Road Patrol" mission, which required me to take my platoon on a sweep of Hiway 13 (AKA: :"Thunder Road" .. the main "highway" north of Saigon ... about 30 miles away.

Division Command wanted us to search for mines along the road (literally, nothing more than a dirt track) where three American soldiers had been ambushed and killed.

The soldiers had been to Saigon to purchase champagne glasses for the New Years' Celebration of their unit.  The three of them were returning from Saigon to their unit in an open jeep, when they were ambushed.  The Viet Cong command-detonated a roadside mine, which tipped over their jeep and spilled them (wounded, confused ... helpless) and then the VC advanced and shot every American in the jeep at close range with AK47 fire.

The Americans were armed, but complacent.  They had no way of knowing they were a target .. there had been no VC action in that area for weeks, and the road was daily patroled by local troops.

But directional command-detonated mines can be easily hidden in the berms on either side of the road, and when this trio of unfortunates .. who were armed, and wearing body armor ...entered the Kill Zone, the mine knocked th jeep on its side and left the three Americans dazed  and defenseless.

The hidden VC then approached them, and shot them on the ground.  Their armor was no defense against an AK47, and every one of them died as they lay dazed on the ground. Every one of their "armored" vests had multiple bullet wounds which penetrated their vests and killed them; DRT (Dead Right There).

The area had been "Mopped Up" (bodies and jeep had been recovered) .. but the "armored vests" were still there.

Every round which hit the vests had fully penetrated; most of them were "through and through", meaning that the rifle rounds of their attackers penetrated the front of the vest, penetrated the chest cavity, and exited through the back of the vest.

When my patrol went through the area, the vests were still in place. 

The area reeked of the copper-iron stench of human blood, and there were stagnant, rotting pools of blood marking where each American had died.

In the First Infantry Division (where I was assigned), infantrymen were not obliged to wear "bullet-proof vests".  And for good reason .. by the time I arrived in-country, it had been long determined that "armored vests" were not adeqyate to stop a bullet from either a Claymore mine (or it's NVA equivalent), but was too hot to wear in a tropical climate when we troops were  actively "working" a patrol.

But "Garret Troopers" trusted "Bullet Proof Vests" as an article of faith ... plus they were often required by their local command to wear them when out of the compound.

(No, it didn't make any sense .. but it was "Wishful Thinking:" that "If It Just Saves One Live ..."!)

It didn't save any lives, but it persuaded armored-vested personnel who didn't understand the universal "YOU'RE IN A WAR ZONE!" concept that they were somehow "safe".

They were not; and these three didn't live to regret their acceptance of  illogical expectations.

SO ... I DO NOT TRUST ARMOR!

Nor should you trust body armor.

Any municipality which expects that its citizens may be protected by body armor is just whistling in the graveyard.

TODAY THERE ARE BODY ARMOR OPTIONS AVAILABLE which will stop low-power pistol rounds ... but few which are available to civilians ... and the energy which even a pistol round generates when stopped before penetration will take your breath away

These "armored vests"  can may stop some pistol-caliber rounds.  But they are obvious to the casual observer.  They are typically worn by Military and Law Enforcement Officers, and nobody expects them to do  more than stop penetration of small-caliber rifle rounds, at best.

It's like a fist to the chest; it will hurt you and it will undermine your ability to return fire for a bit.  You may not have the luxury of recovering from the impact before you can return fire.

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