A representative of the VA sent Jesse Wendel of the Group News Blog an email after reading his carrying my original story about the “MkII Pencil test” of body armor. The email denied the truth of assertion by military officials that soldiers who wore Dragon Skin armor into combat would be penalized if they died. It was claimed that the soldiers beneficiaries would be denied the SGLI payment.

Jesse Wendel sent me a copy of an email he received regarding the SGLI denial story.

Folks:

My title is below. One of my responsibilities is managing the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) program on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I have been involved in the SGLI program for nearly 30 years.

I can assure you, there is ZERO truth to the statement about SGLI not being payable if the service member is injured or killed while wearing or not wearing that Dragon body armor or any other item.

99% of active duty service members have elected to be insured under SGLI. Except for extraordinarily serious situations, such as treason, desertion, etc. SGLI death proceeds are always payable for those individuals. SGLI is 24/7 coverage, everywhere in the world, and is payable whether the death is combat-related or not.

Please correct your story, or at least advise your staffs to not repeat the erroneous information in the future. Thank you very much.

Steve

Jesse and I have taken it as accurate and honest in tone and tenor. There is no need to contact jim by phone or email and discuss the matter with him. It goes without saying there is no need to appoint oneself a soldiers’ collective representative and abuse him in anyway at all.

Obviously, the next step was to backtrack the SGLI denial story. This story emanates from a January 14, 2006 article written by Nathaniel Helms under the DefenseWatch subsection of the pro-soldier Soldiers For The Truth which was started and inspired by COL David Hackworth, one of the greatest infantry soldiers the US was ever honored to have wear its uniform.

Go read the original, which I have excerpted, and decide for yourself. Remember: the issue here is not whether soldiers were actually denied their SGLI benefits, but whether or not the Army intentionally, mendaciously and dishonorably lied to troops going into combat.

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occured for operational security reasons.

On Saturday morning a soldier affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that "all" commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down Friday morning from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. [editor: Special Ops soldiers are usually not given to telling tall tales unless it is at a bar.] It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations. The soldier said the order was deeply disturbiing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection. [emph added]

"We have to be able to move. It (Dragon Skin) is heavy, but it is made so we have mobility and the best ballistic protection out there. This is crazy. And they are threatening us with our benefits if we don't comply." he said.

The soldier reiterated Friday's reports that any soldier who refused to comply with the order and was subsequently killed in action "could" be denied the $400,000 death benefit provided by their SGLI life insurance policy as well as face disciplinary action.

As of this report Saturday morning the Army has not yet responded to a DefenseWatch inquiry.
…
One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up" and had to be enforced, the soldier said. Another soldier's story was corroborated by his mother, who helped defray the $6,000 cost of buying the Dragon Skin, she said.

The mother of the soldier, who hails from the Providence, Rhode Island area, said she helped pay for the Dragon Skin as a Christmas present because her son told her it was "so much better" than the Interceptor OTV they expected to be issued when arriving in country for a combat tour.

"He didn't want to use that other stuff," she said. "He told me that if anything happened to him I am supposed to raise hell."

At the time the orders were issued the two soldiers had already loaded their Dragon Skin body armor onto the pallets being used to air freight their gear into the operational theater, the soldiers said. They subsequently removed it pursuant to their orders.

Currently nine U.S. generals stationed in Afghanistan are reportedly wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin body armor, according to company spokesman Paul Chopra. Chopra, a retired Army chief warrant officer and 20+-year pilot in the famed 160th "Nightstalkers" Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), said his company was merely told the generals wanted to "evaluate" the body armor in a combat environment. Chopra said he did not know the names of the general officers wearing the Dragon Skin. [emph added]

While searching to track down the original story which emanated from the Solders For The Truth webpage I happened upon this interesting tidbit:

Former Head of Army's Body Armor Program Under Criminal Investigation

Retired Army Colonel John D. Norwood (West Point '80), former head of the Army office responsible for body armor, is reported to be under criminal investigation for alleged violations of federal law related to his taking a post-retirement job with Armor Holdings, Inc., one of the major providers of Interceptor Body Armor to the Army .

Two sources aware of the investigation have told DefenseWatch that at least three federal agencies are investigating Norwood's transition from being the Project Manager for Soldier Equipment under PEO-SOLDIER (from 2003 until his retirement in the summer of 2006) to his post-retirement job as a Vice President of the Aerospace & Defense Group of Armor Holdings.

Editor's Note: Effective August 1, 2007 BAE became the owner of Armor Holdings, Inc., and the new owners assigned components of former Armor Holdings to already existing divisions within BAE. A representative of BAE confirmed to DefenseWatch that Col. Norwood is a current employee with the title of "Vice President for Business Development" of a BAE component. This representative stated that he was "unaware of any investigation involving Col. John Norwood."

(DefenseWatch first exposed Norwood's trip through the revolving door from a senior position in the Army's body armor program responsible for Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) to a senior position with Armor Holdings.)

A third source, a long-time member of the personal protective equipment industry, has told DefenseWatch that one of the specific allegations for which Norwood is being investigated involves possible illegal actions with regard to classified information.

DefenseWatch will continue to pursue this story and keep its readers informed as more information becomes available.

Editor's Note: It is important to emphasize: (1) that Norwood is entitled to the presumption of innocence. To this point a criminal investigation is underway. And, (2) that an investigation means only that federal law enforcement agencies are gathering evidence that will be presented to a US Attorney for determination as to whether the evidence is sufficient to move forward to the next level of legal proceedings, i.e., presentation of evidence to a federal grand jury. A DefenseWatch email to Norwood's personal/home email account has not been answered.

By the way, that interior link to Defense Watch, in which they state they first learned of the investigation, is worth quoting too. It is dated March 23, 2007.

A Sad Reality - Four West Pointers At The Heart Of The Body Armor Scandal

Those readers of DefenseWatch who have followed SFTT's efforts over the past year and a half to get honest and completely transparent comparative testing of all available both armor, including, but not necessarily restricted to both Dragon Skin and the currently issued Interceptor Body Armor system, know that from time to time there's been a tad -- okay, maybe more than a tad -- of anger in my writings on this subject. After all, it's truly an issue of life-or-death importance to America's Grunts.

This column is however, written much more in sadness and sorrow than in anger.

West Point graduates have contributed so much, for so many years, to the defense of our great nation, and in other areas as well. Two have been presidents.

But, it is on our country's many battlefields over the last two centuries that The Long Gray Line has earned the respect and gratitude that distinguishes West Point from all other institutions in our nation.

Two of the warriors that Hack respected most are West Point grads who continue to serve their country by being members of the SFTT Advisory Board: Lt. Gen. Henry E. "Hank" Emerson USA (Ret.), Class of 1947, and Lt.Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, USA (Ret.), Class of 1945. Their records of distinguished and heroic performance as combat leaders speak for themselves, and need no repeating here.

Consequently, to have discovered that several West Pointers have played key roles in ensuring that inferior body armor continues to be issued to our great troops is a particular and sharp disappointment to this writer.

Before I get into the specifics of who are these "disappointments," and what just what were their roles in continuing the status quo when undeniable evidence proves a better body armor is available, I want to quote from an email received just this morning.

Like the combat leadership achievements of Hank Emerson and Hal Moore, this email speaks for itself.

I will identify the sender as a father of an sergeant of infantry, with one combat tour in Iraq behind him, and another tour coming up later this year. (Due to this father's diligence, SFTT has recently obtained some amazing information that will be shared with our readers in the next few weeks. Stand by.)

There’s much more to this story of apparent corruption within the US Army’s body armor criterion and selection board.

The letter referred to above must be read since it forms a pertinent part of this ongoing story.

As the editor notes above a presumption of innocence must be made. Are any of you familiar with how a military investigation is conducted? Early on you’re given an “Article 32” hearing, which often includes the proceedings required under Article 31, and is the military’s equivalent under UCMJ and is approximately analogous to the civilian law enforcement agencies conducting an investigation, issuing a Miranda warning, and performing the sort of detailed collection and consideration of evidence done by a grand jury in the civilian world.

Having granted COL Norwood his due right to be considered innocent, it’s noteworthy to remember that by the time the military gets to Article 32, there is an assumption that the matter will go further, and that’s all I’m going to say about the matter for now.

Most military summoned to an Article 32 hearing bring a defense attorney with them for very good reason.

The Body Armor Series

Reimbursements

The Rule of the Six P’s


Point Blank Rage: The Body Armor Scandal

Point Blank War Profits

Body Armor

Department of My Head Hurts

Dept of Head No Longer Hurting

Turtles and Dragons

New Armor Suits

Point Blank Armor Fails Again

VoteVets

Shopping Safely in Baghdad

Army Fields New Body Armor Design

More on the New Body Armor

The IOTV Goes Into Production

Troops Slowly Wising Up

Yet Another New Body Vest

A New Solution to Snipers

Passing the Test With the Pencil

Update on the Pencil Test