Two Years Is Pretty Quick, Right?

UPDATE: Shipping them starting next month. AP (03.23.05):

"The Army is rushing to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan a new and easy-to-use plastic tourniquet that could save more lives on the battlefield. The Army has ordered 172,000 of the new tourniquets and will begin distributing them next month." Army Working to Get New Tourniquets to Soldiers on Battlefield

AP (03.14.05), via Army Times:

"Under pressure from Congress, the Army has decided to quickly dispatch modern tourniquets to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s more than two years after military doctors recommended that every soldier carry one. “We have decided we have to expedite the new tourniquets,” Virginia Stephanakis, a spokeswoman for the Army surgeon general, said last week." Troops in Iraq, Afghanistan to get tourniquets

"A committee of military doctors urged in February 2003 that every soldier carry one of the $20 medical devices, a nylon and plastic version of the simple cloth-and-stick device armies have used to stop bleeding for centuries." "But many don’t, and some have bled to death from wounds on which a tourniquet might have been effective, according to more than a dozen military doctors and medical specialists interviewed by The (Baltimore) Sun (for their March 6 article)." "The Army’s decision comes after two Senate Democrats, Carl Levin of Michigan and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, wrote (on March 8) to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asking for a review of the issue and a timetable for outfitting all soldiers with the tourniquet in light of the article in...." "Stephanakis had no immediate details on the number of tourniquets or a timetable by which they will be sent to U.S. troops, who number about 150,000 in Iraq and about 20,000 in Afghanistan." Pretty soon though. Right?