On a recent, chilly day in upstate New York, I found myself riding shotgun in a black Chevy Trailblazer with a small arsenal of assault weapons in the trunk. The driver, Dave Warren, a 39-year-old Vietnamese-born ex-Marine and veteran of Desert Storm, was a man on a mission. An inventor and an engineer for a Connecticut security company, Warren had devised a lightweight vehicle armor he thinks will better protect Humvees from Iraqi insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and homemade bombs than the steel currently used to belatedly up-armor the vehicles. He’s currently lobbying to have it reviewed by the Pentagon.

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