Have you ever been in an armed vehicle?

Have you ever ridden in an armed vehicle before? Neither had I until last night, it was my first time. I have seen them around and never really thought about them or what they are actually like. I realize now that a lot more of the UN vehicles are armoured cars than I had imagined and in fact it was in one of those that I travelled yesterday. It was a big landcruiser and brandished as you would expect with big blue UN letters on the side, a codan radio mast on the front right corner. The first thing I noticed was just how heavy the door was – I had to use two hands to close it, when I made that comment I was told that the whole thing weighed 4 tonnes!! Can that be right? Well once inside you cannot be seen from outside because of the darkened and bullet proof glass. On the dash board is an array of handsets from two different high frequency radios, some mobile phones and a satellite phone, I was informed that I could phone home on that. They do their job though – two weeks ago one was ambushed and shot up in one of the outlying districts and everyone inside was fine and the car was just battered up on the outside. It makes my car with roll bars and ballistic blanket look…well, village.