The first "Scott Thomas" piece for the New Republic, "War Bonds" (February 5, 2007), tells the story of an Iraqi boy whose tongue is cut out for speaking with "Thomas"'s unit. The piece opens with this:
In Baghdad, a busted infrastructure has left entire neighborhoods navigable by vehicle only. The sector we soldiers patrol is known unaffectionately as "Little Venice" because of the dark brown rivers of sewage that backwash from broken pipes. The biggest fear in these parts isn't sniper fire or IEDs, but a flat tire that forces you to wade through the reeking fluids. Occasionally, that fear is realized--like on the day when I met Ali.
WWS pal Stuart Koehl, who is regularly quoted here as an expert on all things technology-related and who first chimed in on this story to explain that there was no way a Bradley driver could see a dog to the right of the vehicle as "Thomas" describes in "Shock Troops," now writes in to cast doubt on this story as well.
Koehl says,
HMMWVs [Humvees] are equipped with a special type of "run flat" tire--there is a solid rubber doughnut wrapped around the rim inside the pneumatic tire. If the inflatable gets punctured, the vehicle settles down on the run-flat insert, which allows it to be driven out of the battle area. The adjustable tire pressure system might keep the tire inflated if it has only a small hole, but its real purpose is to match ground pressure to the road surface for maximum traction. HMMWV tires are huge, heavy, and most vehicles don't carry a spare. A drop-down spare tire carrier has only recently become available as an option on Up-Armored HMMWVs.
He attaches this brochure as evidence, as well as this excerpt from 3-year-old article in National Defense magazine:
Notably, the Humvees are not issued with spare tires. When the Army initially purchased the Humvee, it specified that they would not carry spare tires, because its tires can run flat, at least for a short distance until they can return to base to get replaced.
Once again, soldiers in the field had to work around the system to get what they needed. Units in Iraq and Afghanistan have purchased spare tire carriers that can be bolted on the vehicle. "A run-flat tire doesn't make it all the way when you are running convoys," said Kern.
Okay, so maybe the thing had a spare tire, maybe not...we can't say for sure though we doubt that it did. But what we do know, and what has been confirmed to us by two experts, is that Humvees have run flat tires which can go miles without being changed. And no soldier in the United States Army would stop in a river of sh%* to change a tire. Either he would a) hook up a tow line to another Humvee or b) drive until he was on a sh%*-free surface where he could make the change. Our source, and we believe him, says a soldier would sooner drive on the rim, damn the consequences, then change a tire under such conditions. And we suspect "Thomas" and his buddies, lousy soldiers that they are if they exist at all, would sooner abandon the vehicle than get their hands dirty.
