Bill would provide money to buy troops body armor

The Ohio Senate Finance Committee is considering the bill.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- All of the state's National Guard troops serving in Iraq have the latest body armor, the Ohio Adjutant General's Office said.
Brig. Gen. Ronald Young, assistant Ohio Adjutant General, said all of the 350 Ohio National Guard troops serving in the military conflict in Iraq have the Interceptor Body Armor, called by some the most effective personal protection for troops.
Young, in testimony Tuesday before the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, also said about 1,500 National Guard troops that are being mobilized will have the body armor.
Considering bill
The general's testimony came as the committee considered a bill that would appropriate $3 million in state money to buy the armor for Ohio National Guard troops mobilized in support of the military conflict.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Marc Dann of Liberty, D-32nd, also would allow the ONG to spend the appropriation on college scholarships if there is no need for body armor.
Dann's bill came in the wake of reports that some Ohio National Guard troops serving in combat areas did not have the bulletproof body armor.
That was the report from Carl Dulin.
Dulin, a youth minister at the Doylestown United Methodist Church in Wayne County, said his son's best friend, Aaron Croft, an Ohio National Guardsman serving as a firefighter at the airport in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, reported in a e-mail a few months ago that he did not have body armor.
"There will be those who rightly might say this is a federal problem," Dulin said. "As a matter of fact, I believe it will take leadership here in the Ohio General Assembly that is determined to hurdle those types of roadblocks to get our kids the protection they need."
Dann said he was pleased to hear the adjutant general's office report, and that he will work on appropriating the money in his bill for National Guard scholarships.
Under Dann's bill, the $3 million would be taken from a $120 million carry-over account in the state's general fund and would ultimately be reimbursed by the federal government.