There ought to be a medal to reward the courage demonstrated yesterday by Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, one of the Tennessee Army National Guard citizen soldiers who make up most of the 278th Regimental Combat Team preparing to leave Kuwait for action in Iraq.
To the cheers of his comrades, Wilson asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"
Rumsfeld, whose cold-iron scowl can wilt uppity members of Congress, asked Wilson to repeat the question. "We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry us north," Wilson insisted.
Rumsfeld's flinty response: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." In other words, quit your bellyaching.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/202906_rummyed.html