Tom Vanden Brook
Peter Eisler
Blake Morrison
USA Today

Citation
Why did the military respond so ineffectively to the threat that roadside bombs in Iraq posed to U.S. troops? Why did the Pentagon balk at pleas from officers in the field for safer vehicles? USA Today reporters Tom Vanden Brook, Peter Eisler, and Blake Morrison pursued the answers to those questions in a series of stories called "Troops at Risk." In the process they did more than chronicle failures-they sparked Pentagon action that almost certainly has saved lives. They wrote about a little-used armored vehicle dubbed MRAP and its ability to withstand roadside bombs more effectively than the widely used armored Humvees. Motivated by the USA Today story, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made buying the MRAP the military's top acquisition priority.

Excerpt
Troops At Risk
July 16, 2007
Pfc. Aaron Kincaid, 25, had been joking with buddies just before their Humvee rolled over the bomb. His wife, Rachel, later learned that the blast blew Kincaid, a father of two from outside Atlanta, through the Humvee's metal roof.
Army investigators who reviewed the Sept. 23 attack near Riyadh, Iraq, wrote in their report that only providence could have saved Kincaid from dying that day: "There was no way short of not going on that route at that time (that) this tragedy could have been diverted."
A USA TODAY investigation of the Pentagon's efforts to protect troops in Iraq suggests otherwise.
Years before the war began, Pentagon officials knew of the effectiveness of another type of vehicle that better shielded troops from bombs like those that have killed Kincaid and 1,500 other soldiers and Marines. But military officials repeatedly balked at appeals - from commanders on the battlefield and from the Pentagon's own staff - to provide the lifesaving Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, for patrols and combat missions, USA TODAY found.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates late last month, two U.S. senators said the delays cost the lives of an estimated "621 to 742 Americans" who would have survived explosions had they been in MRAPs rather than Humvees.
The letter, from Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo., assumed the initial calls for MRAPs came in February 2005, when Marines in Iraq asked the Pentagon for almost 1,200 of the vehicles. USA TODAY found that the first appeals for the MRAP came much earlier.
As early as December 2003, when the Marines requested their first 27 MRAPs for explosives-disposal teams, Pentagon analysts sent detailed information about the superiority of the vehicles to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, e-mails obtained by USA TODAY show. Later pleas came from Iraq, where commanders saw that the approach the Joint Chiefs embraced - adding armor to the sides of Humvees, the standard vehicles in the war zone - did little to protect against blasts beneath the vehicles.
Despite the efforts, the general who chaired the Joint Chiefs until Oct. 1, 2005, says buying MRAPs "was not on the radar screen when I was chairman." Air Force general Richard Myers, now retired, says top military officials dealt with a number of vehicle issues, including armoring Humvees. The MRAP, however, was "not one of them." Something related to MRAPs "might have crossed my desk," Myers says, "but I don't recall it."
Why the issue never received more of a hearing from top officials early in the war remains a mystery, given the chorus of concern. One Pentagon analyst complained in an April 29, 2004, e-mail to colleagues, for instance, that it was "frustrating to see the pictures of burning Humvees while knowing that there are other vehicles out there that would provide more protection."
The analyst was referring to the MRAP, whose V-shaped hull puts the crew more than 3 feet off the ground and deflects explosions. It was designed to withstand the underbelly bombs that cripple the lower-riding Humvees.

Biography
Blake Morrison, as the deputy enterprise editor at USA Today, contributes original reporting and helps to direct projects and investigations for the nation's largest newspaper. After six years as a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Morrison joined USA Today as a national reporter in 1999 and began covering aviation security after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He has taught reporting and writing courses at the University of Maryland and is the co-author of the memoir, How to Cook Your Daughter. He lives in Alexandria, Va.

Peter Eisler has been an investigative reporter at USA Today since 1995. He's a two-time winner of the National Press Club's Kozik Medal for environmental reporting, most recently for a series on the Pentagon's efforts to avoid cleaning up pollution at military bases. Last year, he was a national finalist for the APME Public Service Award for stories on fire safety lapses in institutions that care for the elderly and disabled. Eisler is a graduate of Trinity College and currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Mimi Hall, who is also a reporter at USA Today.

Tom Vanden Brook has covered the Pentagon for USA Today since April 2006. Before coming to USA Today in 2000, he was a reporter at The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where his beats included local and state government, general assignment, higher education and the environment. He has a master's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Wisconsin. Vanden Brook lives with his wife, journalist Katherine Skiba, in Arlington, Va.