As with most threads, this one is diverging along several themes.
As to the Jessie James episode from Balad (I'm betting Anaconda from what I did see of it). Lot's of entertainers have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan. Saw several myself during my tour there, including Robin Williams, Toby Keith, and the Miller Light Girls, among others. Many do it for the moral of the troops. To try to give something back. Some surely are doing it for the publicity (similar to why some politicians tour the war zone) but at least the troops still get something out of a visit by even these entertainers. Trying to bring a little entertainment to the troops is a long tradition. I expect to see more of the USO shows broadcast in the television media, along side all the other war-bases shows, movies, and specials we are seeing these days. People will capitalize on it...human nature with human interest stories.
Some of the video seemed to be directed at an anti-war theme. I imagine a lot of people are upset that scenes of the vehicle graveyards were being broadcast. Lots of folks like to cover up the actual costs of the war..... every hulk in that yard represents dead and wounded soldiers that were it them at the time. Its one thing to be anti-war, and another to be pro-troops,.... but I don't abide those that choose to ignore all the mistakes that have been made by those in charge as being part of supporting the troops. Or those who want to hide the actual costs of war. You fail to realize your mistakes, fail to adjust and deal with them, you will repreat them....and more soldiers die
The HMMV. Not a combat vehicle. Never was designed as one. U.S. Army has not made much use of armored cars over the years. They always designed for the war against the USSR. Tanks and APCs and poorly designed IFV's (Bradley was designed and continually redesigned to try and fill too many roles, not really great at any of them IMHO). Even as low intensity conflicts were becoming the norm, the procurement side of the military still focused on high tech toys. As a result, no urban combat vehicles, armored cars, or dedicated CAS platforms really available in sufficient numbers when this war started.
Now Armored cars are being built and sent overseas as fast as they can be.... LAV 150's, LAV-300, M-1117's. It took a lot of dead and wounded troops to convince those in charge of the need of such vehicles in the inventory.
Policy. Early during OIF, the decision was made to perform missions with HMMVs so the troops could interact with the population; the hearts and minds campaign. Tanks, APCs, and IFVs were considered too threatening for such presence.... too hard for the troops to recieve their flowers and candy from the grateful populous. Even when the insurgency started to gain hold, they kept running HMMV's and light vehicles. And when the reality of the insurgency became undeniable, they just started to "up-armor" the lighter vehicles. Once a policy goes into effect, getting it changed is sometimes like taking an old bone away from a mangy dog.
My unit made do with class-3 armored vehicles (bolt-on boiler plate). HMMV's, 5-ton dumps outfitted as "gun trucks", and HEMMETs. Few to no ring mounts for our heavier weapons, so we had to jury-rig whatever we could, which included cutting up many tripod mounts. When some vehicles like these started experiencing roll-overs with dead and wounded soldiers (my company was one that had an incident) we were ordered to not use them any more...... when we asked what they would give us to mount heavy weapons on, they replied nothing.... have to make do with HMMV's and 249 SAWs..... we promptly ignored the orders so we could still roll with M2 .50's and Mk 19's.
