INDIANAPOLIS — Army Staff Sgt. Tom Davis never saw the bomb that destroyed his Humvee as he rounded a corner in Ramadi just a week into his second tour in Iraq in 2006. Davis lost a leg and broke his back and both arms and can no longer walk or work. He’ll never know whether he would have been less severely injured if he had been in a different vehicle.
But his experience, and those of thousands of other Americans wounded in bomb-shredded Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, foretold what now appears to be the official demise of the hulking all-terrain vehicles that came to symbolize the military as much as the rugged jeeps they replaced.
The Army provided no new money for the Humvee in the service’s recent budget proposal. Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an Army spokesman, said the 2,620 vehicles ordered from Mishawaka, Ind.-based AM General will be the last as the Army moves on to newer designs.
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, dubbed the Humvee by soldiers, got its start when the Army began looking to replace the latest version of the jeep in the late 1970s. Since 1985, AM General has produced 240,000 Humvees.
Cummings said the Army is now moving to the larger and more heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs.
