In one single fiscal year alone, the United States government spends more than a half a trillion dollars on its military.

But, yet again, SOMEHOW they’ve failed to supply their elite troops with equipment that can keep them safe and allow them to do their job in the some of the most dangerous areas of the world.

And this time, they knew about the problem in advance, but still couldn’t manage to replace said crappy hardware so now hundreds of the most killed, well-trained fighters wearing Old Glory on their sleeves are out there with faulty stuff — and it’s putting them in danger.

The culprit this time? L-3 Communications and the crappy/broken rifle sights they manufactured then sold to the Pentagon — that our brave men and women abroad are still using.

This from the Washington Post:

The U.S. government is aware of the problem and sued the sight’s maker in November for fraud, accusing the company, L-3 Communications, of covering up a variety of issues with the sight, which has been used by every branch of the military, the FBI, the State Department and local law enforcement.

The company quickly settled for $25.6 million. “A sight that ‘almost works’ is not acceptable,” said Naval Criminal Investigative Service Director Andrew Traver in a news release the day the settlement was announced.

But more than four months later, the equipment has not been recalled or replaced, say current service members and military officials. Instead, it is still used by units under Special Operations Command (SOCOM), including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Corps Special Operation units and some parts of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, according to Navy Cmdr. Matthew Allen, a spokesman for SOCOM. The Marine Corps is also continuing to use thousands of the sights, said a Marine Corps spokesman, Maj. Tony Semelroth.

The company contests that of the problems the government named, they’ve fixed all of them — save one.

And, of course, the defect that remains unchanged is of the utmost importance, according to experts. This again from the WaPo:

[The] problem, known as thermal drift because it is weather-related, can cause the holographic weapon sight, or HWS, to be off target by six to 12 inches when a shooter is 300 feet away from a target, a common distance in a combat zone, according to the government’s lawsuit. Missing a target by as much as a foot can be disastrous for a soldier since it can be the difference between landing a fatal shot and missing the target.

In the lawsuit, an unnamed employee at the manufacturer was quoted as saying of this particular defect: “This is likely one of the worst types of failure, since most users won’t notice the problem until their life is on the line.”

L-3 Communications says the defect rears its ugly head when temperatures are extreme, either too hot or too cold. Something that isn’t strange for special ops to encounter in the Middle East and beyond.

While some in the Pentagon are publicly reiterating the priority this potentially-deadly misstep calls for, others are brushing it aside, saying that the sight’s inadequacies won’t be tested because they’re “only used in a role where the limitations of the equipment are not in conflict with the safety or effectiveness of our warfighters.”

Which is funny (not “haha” funny) because as soon as the Denver Police Department realized they were running around with bad sights on their rifles — they removed them right away.

But Navy SEALs, Delta Force soldiers and Green Berets? Nah, they get to run around with the defective gear. Because it’s not like these elite military personnel are in DENVER — which in 2010 was listed by Forbes as one of the ten safest cities in all of America.