 The chief weapon of the insurgency here in Helmand province is familiar to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, the improvised explosive device. Many operations in Helmand must be carried out on foot, negating the relative safety of up-armored and mine-resistant vehicles. As a result, hundreds of Marines, sailors and other coalition forces in the province have suffered amputations from IED blasts. While the loss of legs and arms are catastrophic enough, sometimes the injuries are much worse. The feedback we got from Marines and from medical providers, they'd asked some questions. They were very worried, a traumatic life event. And the first one was with the narcotics and the drugs. A lot of times they couldn't see real well or they were knocked out. Can I see? Will I have my vision? The next question is, will I be able to have a family? Will I be able to have a normal life? In an IED blast, the victim's groin is exposed to the explosion, shrapnel and debris. I've led the resuscitation of about 200 injured Marines, soldiers, Afghan national security forces and local nationals. And a fair number of them are associated and accompanied with general injuries. Other than detecting, avoiding or neutralizing an IED before it strikes, little can be done to protect the legs and arms. But coalition forces have started taking steps to protect other, more sensitive areas. In January of this year, British forces began wearing a new protective item, the Tier 1 ballistic undergarment. The so-called blast boxers may look flimsy, but experts say they could make the difference between losing a limb and losing something more. And we started to observe that British soldiers who were undergoing the same injuries as some of the Marines were not getting injuries to their external genitalia. This is a pair of brand new blast boxers. U.S. forces quickly caught on. More than 25,000 sets of blast boxes are now in the hands of Marine Corps units and already proving their worth. This happens to be a pair that a soldier was wearing when he was exposed by IED Mindstrike. And this is the outside, and you can see the damage done by the IED. And this is the inside with a lot of the blast and frag being taken up for by the shorts. Upgrades to growing protection don't stop with the boxers. A second layer of armor could be even more important. The Tier 2 device is actually a much more thickened Kevlar-like flexible, but Kevlar-like apron that rolls up like a fanny pack behind you. As you're going into, say you're on a mounted patrol, you're now going on to a dismounted patrol, you're simply unfasten. It rolls out kind of like a diaper, tucks up under the belt to a Velcro strap, two snaps on the side, very quickly employed. And again, what that creates is now essentially a boxer short orientation of a thick Kevlar material that not only will stop those small fragments and that kind of road rash stuff, now we're talking about larger fragments off the IED itself or larger objects that may have flown up in the blast. Approved for purchase in early August, the Tier 2 device is now being issued to Marines most at risk to IED strikes. Ultimately, the Corps' fielding plan calls for every deployed Marine to receive a pair of the boxers, while additional sets and the Tier 2 protector will be issued out on an as-needed basis. Reporting from Camp Leatherneck, Helmand Province, I'm Staff Sergeant Jeremy Ross.