The caution comes as no surprise to Aaron Negherbon, whose nonprofit helps soldiers circumvent government fiscal challenges and red tape to get critical equipment to combat troops.
“I’ve been told by units that are over there, as well as units that are still stateside, that they are already feeling budget pinches as a result of the state of affairs in D.C.,” said Negherbon, TroopsDirect founder. “We’re hearing more statements that are along the lines of, ‘Our supply chains have been minimized, and we can’t get stuff in the time that we need.’”
For the past three years, Negherbon says his handful of volunteers near Oakland, Calif., have secured and expedited 60,000 pounds of vital supplies like stretchers, communications gear, protective goggles and more to infantry units and special operations forces around the globe. But then a few weeks ago, the former real estate broker fielded a call for something never requested before: bulletproof vests.
“We need body armor,” Negherbon recalls the veteran Army sergeant saying. “He said, ‘We’re getting ready to deploy, and they are only giving us 30 of the 60 vests that we need.’ The way he laid it out to me … it was part budget and part just general policy of what the unit was going to be issued as opposed to what they needed to have issued.”
The sergeant told Negherbon 60 soldiers in his unit, which deploys to Afghanistan in early April, are route-clearing specialists assigned to eliminate roads of obstacles, primarily improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“It’s not like they are chefs or secretaries,” Negherbon said. “They are the guys that go out there and identify and defuse the bombs."
