This is interesting. Chip at Finding Iraq posts’the following’two photos showing ABC News Anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt about 30 minutes before the IED incident.

As you can see, Vogt’is wearing body armor and a helmet, which might protect him from sniper bullets but’seems relatively useless against an Improvised Explosive Device. Now, take a look at Woodruff. It’s hard to tell, but it appears that he has no protection whatsoever. No helmet on (is he’holding it?), and’it looks as if he isn’t wearing’body armor. It might be a bullet proof vest of some kind, but it certainly isn’t of the same caliber as the one Vogt is wearing.

Seems’a bit irresponsible of Woodruff, if you ask me. After reading the news stories, one would get the impression that both Woodruff and Vogt were outfitted to the hilt, much like the soldiers you see above. Obviously, that’s not the case.

It’s one thing to be reporting from a hotel balcony within the green zone. It’s quite another to be riding in an Iraqi jeep’wearin Levi Button Fly’s.

Would their injuries have been less severe had they been completely suited up or are IED’s so deadly that no amount of protection would have mattered? When reporters are embedded with infantry in’the war arena, what are the minimum requirements for protective gear?

UPDATE: ABCNEWS anchor suffered multiple broken ribs, shoulder and skull fracture. Bomb fragments pierced neck and back, though apparently not brain. Doctors have kept him unconscious; extent of head wounds was not clear. Woodruff underwent three hours of surgery on Monday to remove shrapnel…