Saving comrades' lives by design

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Spc. Gabriel Hernandez, 22, of San Antonio displays a bulletproof face shield that took a direct hit recently from a 7.62mm round fired by insurgents. The shield saved the gunner from being hit in the face.


Saving comrades' lives by design
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, November 7, 2007


MOSUL, Iraq — Sgt. Mabon Briola has always enjoyed tinkering with things.

So after two of his buddies, both Humvee turret gunners, were shot in the face by insurgent snipers, Briola decided to do something he hoped would prevent more gunners from getting hit. Although both soldiers survived, he didn’t want to see any more of his friends share the same fate.

The 36-year-old native of Yigo, Guam, took a glass and metal plate from a bulletproof shield originally designed to protect the commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He then modified a night-vision sight so the shield could be fitted onto any Humvee turret gun, from a M249 Squad Automatic Weapon and up.

“It’s designed to save the soldier’s life,” said Briola, a soldier with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, from Fort Bliss, Texas. “Once the sniper sees this then, hopefully, he’s going to pick another target, and by that time, we’ll be out of there.”

Call it an example of old-fashioned GI ingenuity.

Essentially a thick glass in a steel casing, Briola’s “bulletproof face shield” has already received extensive field testing on his own Humvee, and he’s made several more for other vehicles in Company A.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50087