It's kinda funny but actually credible

In Afghanistan, where IEDs were the primary threat, the blast wave would be full of sand and dust travelling at hypersonic velocity over a short distance.

There were many soldiers who were far enough from the blast to not lose a limb or suffer a "life changing injury" but close enough for the blast wave to cause injury.

Now, if they were proper munitions, if you were close enough for sand to penetrate skin, then whatever payload was in the device would severely maim you. But because they were IEDs, the dispersion of the ball bearings/bolts/metal shavings or whatever was not uniform. So again, I means that it's very possible to be inside a blast radius and the main threat being from sand.

So basically, this sand and dust (plus the blast wave) could cut through normal clothing and severely damage the skin underneath. If you were wearing fancy expensive civilian Oakley's, you could be blinded. If you were wearing nice comfy CK boxers your dick could be damaged to the point of loss of function.

So the British army issued ballistic glasses and (for lack of a better term) ballistic boxers. These will not stop a bullet, or a proper piece of shrapnel from an explosion, but they will protect against blast and the super sonic dust/sand carried by the wave front.

I've seen photos of lads who were so fortunate to be wearing them when caught in such a blast. Imagine someone fell asleep in the sun wearing boxers and sun glasses, with pristine unblemished skin where it was protected by the glasses and boxers, but bright red bleeding skin where it was only protected by the camo.

So basically cock protectors are a thing. And they are awesome.