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3-star recalls his initial skepticism of MRAPs

The former commander of the 1st Armored Division said he was initially so skeptical of the value added by mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles that he was reluctant to field them to his division during his last tour in Iraq.

“As a commander it scared the hell out of me,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who commanded the division’s headquarters in northern Iraq from September 2007 to December 2008, when it formed the core of Multi-National Division North. The first MRAPs were fielded to the division in February 2008.

“We had seven different variants, there was no maintenance structure that came to Iraq with it,” Hertling said Wednesday in a meeting with reporters during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual symposium. “You’d have convoys going down the road and you’d have to turn one of them into an ambulance in case you had casualties; you had to learn how to tow these big old horses.”

Hertling said that the first time he rode in an MRAP he was surprised to see a “tilt meter” to which the driver had to pay attention in order to ensure he did not tip the vehicle over.

“This was not a program of record so we were doing this really on the fly and it scared the hell out of me. And I kind of pushed back a little on the fielding of the MRAPs,” Hertling said, adding that his attitude was, “‘We’re doing just fine with the up-armored Humvees, everything’s okay, we really don’t want it.’

“Luckily my superiors pushed back on me and said ‘You’re taking them,’ because in the end … it saved hundreds of lives,” he said.