Quote Originally Posted by JM2008 View Post
That's funny because the last stats I saw said the Air Force had over 1/3 of the KIAs in OEF/OIF.
By that do you mean opponent KIAs or US KIAs? If the former, I suspect that would be extremely difficult to determine with any accuracy. If the latter, US, the Stats seem to disagree with you. LINK. Though I do note that the first listed Killed in Afghanistan is indeed USAF. Scroll down to the very bottom of the list at this LINK. Iraq casualties can be back linked from that page.

Having said all that, I have no doubt that the USAF -- and the guys and gals it sends over there -- do their jobs in combat on the ground as well as in the air -- and then some. Many other nations do not use their AF people as do we and the Security Squadron folks, the loggies who do convoys and most of all the FACS, JTACs and TACPs who go with the Infantry, SF and SOF certainly go out and get among 'em.
As far as costing the tax payer more money: multicam was not developed through R&D from any of the services and it already in productive use in other countries, i.e. the UK.
It'll still cost more, it's a proprietary pattern and those who use it have to be willing and able to buy it from Crye or their designated suppliers who pay a license fee for for each inch of fabric and pass that cost on to the customer. For the UK, the determination was that it's affordable for about 150K troops. For the US, you're looking at probably four or more sets for over 1M or about ten times or more as many uniforms -- even if it's only a nickel a uniform it'll cost big bucks over a Natick developed pattern.

Plus, you've got the US Army and their "It wasn't invented by us" stupidity...