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

Greetings, visitors from the Group News Blog and from AlterNet. Thanks for stopping by. At the bottom of this article you will find links to 18 other articles I've written about the Army's search for a better armor design and its stubborn and loyal steadfastness to what is apparently a second best design, Point Blank's Interceptor. The entire series can be found in a topic guide in the left hand margin.

If you like what you read, please feel free to peruse some of our other topics.

The Body Armor debate is back in the news again. Stung by Congressional criticism, the Army has one again agreed to a side-by-side live fire comparison of the “controversial” Dragon Skin armor system and the currently issued Interceptor armor, worn by GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army has opted to delay testing of new body armor designs that can stop powerful armor piercing bullets and vests that contain flexible plating much like the controversial Dragon Skin armor.

Citing industry requests, the Army's top gear buyer told Military.com the test firing on so-called "XSAPI" and "FSAPI" armor would be held off until March 2008.

"Some body armor manufacturers told us they needed a little more time to get long-lead materials and to test new designs before they could submit them to us," said Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, head of the Fort Belvoir, Va.-based Program Executive Office Soldier.

Brown said the new armor designs would likely be tested at Aberdeen Test Center, Md., beginning in March and finished up by June. Testing on the new designs was previously set to begin last fall.

A cynical fly on the wall would not have been surprised to have heard “some” armor manufacturer say, “Are you insane? We can’t stand up to a side-by-side test! We need to to build a better vest for the testing.”

The Army insists the Interceptor is the best armor available, and has in fact warned GIs that if they wear Dragon Skin and are injured or killed, they families will not be allowed to collect their SGLI benefits.

The Army was pressured into launching a new solicitation for body armor designs after lawmakers held hearings on Capitol Hill to delve into the debate surrounding Dragon Skin, which is made by Fresno, Calif.-based Pinnacle Armor. An NBC News investigative report in May claimed that the flexible Dragon Skin armor was far more protective than the current Interceptor system, which uses two rigid ceramic plates to stop armor-piercing bullets.

Who are you going to believe? NBC News or the Army? Decisions, decisions.

The Army came out swinging before the NBC report aired, claiming Dragon Skin had catastrophically failed several make-or-break tests it had conducted -- the same kinds of tests used to certify all body armor systems submitted to the Army for fielding.

So, the Army prefers the Interceptor, now improved, with side panels.

Apparently the Army has no problem with visiting Senators looking for photo ops wearing Dragon Skin armor.

They also have no problem with Sith Lords who visit Iraq for whatever dark purpose.

If any reader believes Whining Joe Lieberman and Dick “dick” Cheney aren’t wearing the very best armor money can buy, please contact me. I have a controlling interest in a bridge I’m prepared to sell you for a bargain price. After gaining approval from the Mayor of New York, and the Borough Presidents of Manhattan and Brooklyn you will be able to erect toll booths. It’s an income for life!

But that didn't stop some Dragon Skin advocates from claiming the fix was in, prompting a House Armed Services Committee hearing June 6 that pitted Pinnacle chief Murray Neal against the anti-Dragon Skin Army brass.

Nevertheless, the committee's ranking member, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., called for a side-by-side test of Dragon Skin and the Interceptor run by government engineers and overseen by both congressional and Pentagon auditors. That led to the Army's June 20 request to industry for both flexible armor designs like Dragon Skin -- which incorporates a series of interlocking ceramic disks rather than a single rigid plate -- and for a so-called "XSAPI" plate which could stop armor piercing rounds the current ESAPI can't.

Attentive readers will note that the Army agreed to the tests only after Representative Hunter – a republican – demanded them. Requests from soldiers, their families and survivors, press, and Democrats were ignored. I wouldn’t want you to labor under the misapprehension that today’s Army is the Army of all the citizens.

[BG Mark Brown, head of the Fort Belvoir, Va.-based Program Executive Office Soldier] said part of the delay in testing comes from industry's inability to create an XSAPI plate that comes in under the weight limit of about seven pounds for a size "large" plate, about a pound more than the current ESAPI.

"One thing troops in the field have told us is they don't want any more weight with a new armor system," Brown said, adding that preliminary submissions for XSAPI have been too heavy.

Pinnacle's [DragonSkin] [Murry] Neal says he plans to submit Dragon Skin samples for the upcoming test and is glad the Army is finally taking his technology seriously.

"The extensions, as we have been told by several Army personnel, are primarily for the current manufacturers to fix the plates that have been run through preliminary testing and that are not passing with enough percentage to guarantee passing the [final] testing," Neal said in a email to Military.com, adding he's only too eager to pit his flexible -- otherwise known as "scalar" -- system up against any comers.

If their vests weren’t ready in the Summer of 2007, and they needed more time to jigger improvements, then the Interceptor certainly wasn’t the best vest available.

I just want to point out that NBC filmed their side-by-side tests of the Interceptor and Dragon Skin vests. The Army either didn’t, or won’t release the films. Suspicions that the Mk II pencil was involved in the testing just might be valid.

NOTE: This story has been updated. See here.

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

Welcome to Yahoo Finance visitors. We're glad to have you here again. Please feel free to take a look at some of our other essays.

During Congressional hearings last month a number of soldiers gave testimony supporting the Interceptor armor supplied to the Army by Point Blank Industries. One in particular is significant:

Staff Sgt. Jeremie Oliver of Fort Hood, Texas, has been in Iraq since October 2006, wearing his body armor every single day. "It works very well," he has reported. The husband and father of four children was shot on Father's Day this year.

"We were on patrol securing a site ... a shot rang out and I got hit in the chest. I was in a Bradley, standing up in the hatch, plotting a grid on my GPS. At first I didn't know what had really happened, but then I felt the pain. I sat down, realized what happened, and opened my vest. The bullet had not penetrated the vest, so we continued the mission and went after the enemy."

I’ve written about the Body Armor issue a number of times. From what I’ve read and heard the Pinnacle Dragon Skin armor is tactically superior to the Interceptor vest, although it is more expensive than the Interceptor vest. It should also be noted that many soldiers have died in Interceptor vests. They were not available to testify about Interceptor failures.

VoteVets, an organization created by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, assisted during the 2006 mid-term elections with a hard-hitting TV commercial that pointed out the inadequacies of the Interceptor vest. Amazingly, even in 2006, soldiers were being deployed to Iraq with less-than effective body armor.

It’s important to understand the Army desires to protect the troops as much as possible. They have been testing a new solution to the problem SSG Oliver experienced: being shot while standing in the hatch of a vehicle.

The U.S. Army plans to outfit thousands more vehicles with Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS), which allow gunners to fire on targets from the safety of armored crew compartments.

In August, Army officials intend to choose one firm from among several competitors to receive a contract for 1,500 CROWS stations. In total, the contract could grow to as many as 6,500 CROWS, Army officials said.

“The Army is looking at the CROWS system for the up-armored Humvee, Fox [reconnaissance vehicle], RG-31 [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and the Abrams [tank], so right now the Army is trying to finalize the basis of issue regarding how many CROWS to order and who gets them,” said Richard Audette, deputy project manager for soldier weapons at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.

Remote weapon-firing capability is a requirement for new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, so more CROWS could wind up being added to expected orders, Audette said.
“Remote weapon stations is a growing industry, if you would, because there are things like MRAP vehicles and other mine-resistant vehicles,” [COL Carl] Lipsit [project manager soldier weapons at Picatinny Arsenal] said. “The goodness of keeping everybody inside that specialty vehicle under armored protection is a valuable thing. CROWS does that for you, keeps people inside. Yet you are still engaged and can still see day and night. With the zoom capability, you can fire all the weapons.”

This would certainly ensure more operator safety and probably survivability. In the installation photo above, the weapon is the Army’s long-time favorite, the “Ma Deuce,” the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, a standard vehicle heavy weapon. It is prone to jams and stoppages, according to Army tests about once every 500 rounds.

One weapon that may go on some of the CROWS stations is ATK’s new high-speed Lightweight 25mm (LW25) Bushmaster chain-gun, which can fire up to seven times as many rounds between jams as the ubiquitous .50-caliber machine gun, ATK officials say. The company developed the gun to fire various heavy rounds that can do the jobs of the .50-caliber and the 40mm grenade launcher.

The Army intends to test-fire the LW25 from an MRAP vehicle in the coming weeks.

ATK is the basic manufacturer for the M242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain gun presently used in the Army’s Bradley vehicles as a turret gun.

The long saga of body armor, the Point Blank Interceptor vs Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin, has reached a new chapter.

As I noted here, the Army's current Interceptor is made by a company associated with David H Brooks, a deep-pockets Republican campaign donor. It utilizes a base of Kevlar sheets reinforced with ceramic plates to provide a degree of protection. The first issues had no side protection, a matter the Army corrected with add-on units until a new design could be produced.

Pinnacle makes their armor differently, with a Kevlar base and interlocking laminated ceramic plates that sort of resemble fish scales. (Although I’m sure “Dragon Skin” sounds more dynamic that “carp skin.”)

Soldiers have been prohibited from buying and using the Dragon Skin armor in the sandbox. In fact they’ve been told that if they use it, the Army will void their GI Life Insurance policies.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor other than the protective gear issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday, the latest twist in a running battle over the equipment the Pentagon gives its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies - including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.

"We're very concerned that people are spending their hard-earned money on something that doesn't provide the level of protection that the Army requires people to wear. So they're, frankly, wasting their money on substandard stuff," said Col. Thomas Spoehr, director of materiel for the Army.

This may surprise some people, but quite a few generals in Iraq and Afghanistan wear Dragon Skin. It’s apparently also the body armor of choice for Republicans when they sneak into Iraq for a photo op.

A cynical man would wonder how the generals would react to the news that their families would get no SGLI payment if they got capped. I don’t know whether junketing Republicans would get their life insurance paid, because…. Well, just because.

When Murry Neal, CEO of Pinnacle heard about the embargo of his armor other than for the nomemklatura he said,

"We know of no reason the Army may have to justify this action," Neal said. "On the surface this looks to be another of many attempts by the Army to cover up the billions of dollars spent on ineffective body armor systems which they continue to try quick fixes on to no avail."

NBC did an investigation about the body armor problem and as part of their investigation conducted some independent ballistics tests which showed the Dragon Skin armor was superior. The Army counter-attacked, claiming that in their tests the Dragon Skin failed, noting specifically that armor-piercing ammunition was stopped more often by the Point Blank vest.

The Army's ESAPI is a rigid ceramic plate about 12-inches high and six inches wide. Soldiers wear front and back plates and two smaller side plates, all of which are designed to stop armor piercing AK-47 rounds found in the war zone. [emph added]

Pressed by a House Armed Services Committee investigation, Mr Neal asked for a “fair test” of his armor against the Point Blank vest.

Pinnacle president Murray Neal faced sharp questions from skeptical Armed Services Committee members during the June 6 hearing, many of whom wondered how earlier Army tests that showed massive failures of Dragon Skin could jibe with the NBC report and Neal's own contention that the government tests were inaccurate or rigged.

In late 2005, Army and Marine officials were startled to note that the Point Blank vests were being penetrated by a new type of armor-piercing round.

Interestingly enough, the Army put out a solicitation for new vests on June 20th asking for vests capable of defeating armor-piercing rounds. [emph added] The Army has agreed to include Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin armor in the new tests.

Senator Joe Lieberman (R-Tel Aviv) slipped into Baghdad yesterday to take a walk around a market, swaddled in Kevlar helmet, body vest, and surrounded by bullet stoppers bodyguards in order to announce that things are really, really improving this time, and that we are near the end of the tunnel, and just a little bit longer will see us through all this.

The caption of this photo should be “Deceitful politician laughs as he thinks of these poor schmucks stuck in Iraq for 30 years.”

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

I can remember that even in 1968/69 one of the most popular songs in troop hooches was The Animals’ 1965 hit We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. Soldiers always want to go home. But It doesn’t look like a good bet for the next two or three decades.

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a “carefully worded” statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:

PACE: Sir, we have published no orders directing the planning for the overall withdrawal of forces. We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down, but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown.

NPR investigated Pace’s statements and found one scenario being considered within the Pentagon would maintain a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq for several decades into the future.

SPC Williams, while waiting for Senator Joe to arrive to act concerned wrote down some other questions from his squadmates.

“When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran?”

“When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?”

Williams missed six months of his girlfriend's pregnancy when he was given six days' notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy's birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.

"He looks just like me," he said. "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up."

Williams wasn't sure if he'd say how he really felt. But if he could, he'd ask about body armor.

"I don't want him to snap his fingers to get things fixed," Williams said, referring to Lieberman. "But he has influence."

That’s true, SPC Willams. He has influence, which is why you’ll be out there in the sandbox for the full 15 months, and then back there again for another 15 after 365 days at home.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like the Democrats intend to do much right now to help him see his son.

Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.

"We're not making any progress," Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. "It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."

But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he'd never voice his true feelings to the senator.

"I think I'd be a private if I did," he joked. "It's just more troops, more targets."

This trooper is ready for NCO School. He’s learned a lot about the Army.

UPDATE: Christy at Firedoglake thinks that Whining Joe looks a lot like Elmer Fudd here in is helmet and vest. What do you think?

I reported in April about the Army’s new Improved Outer Tactical Vest describing its superiority in design, construction, and fit. On May 16th there was further news, including the disappointing revelation that the Army had not let any contracts for this vest, described by the Army as quite superior to the Point Blank Interceptor vest currently fielded.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army is late in delivering newer, lighter body armor to soldiers downrange.

In April, an official with Program Executive Officer Soldier (PEO Soldier) said that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would begin to receive the Improved Outer Tactical Vests that month.

“The Army will begin fielding the IOTV April 07 as directed by [Headquarters, Department of the Army/ Army Central Command],” said Steven Pinter in an e-mailed response to questions to Stars and Stripes last month.

But the Army has not yet awarded a contract for the new body armor, according to PEO Soldier, the Army’s development center for advanced soldier equipment.

Officials at PEO Soldier declined to comment about why no contract has been awarded.

“It is not common Army practice to discuss pending contract awards in the media,” an e-mailed response from PEO says. “As soon as contracts are in place, PEO Soldier would be pleased to conduct an interview with Stars and Stripes.”

Asked if he could say why no such contract had been awarded, Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, who handles Army resources issues said, “No, I can’t.”

As I noted in May,

After all, it’s only been five weeks, and Mr Bu$h and Mr Rove have been preoccupied with trying to avoid being locked up in jail for their part in the burgeoning AttorneyGate scandal (and the soon-to-be-made-public scandal involving the FBI’s ultra-secret illegal domestic program) and they haven’t been able to make the appropriate deal with a Republican Party big pocket$ donor.

Sooner or later, as is the track record with the Bu$h malAdministration, they’ll get the graft squared away, and they’ll then start paying attention to the needs of the troops. Until that time, the delay will continue to be the fault of the Democratic Congress.

NB: Only a truly cynical man would believe anyone at Bu$hCo is actually making any money off these contracts although the likelihood of generous donations to the Republican Party's various 2008 is always possible.

Stars and Stripes announced today that:

Army awards contracts for lighter body armor

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army has awarded contracts for newer, lighter body armor known as Improved Outer Tactical Vests.

The new vests weigh three pounds less than the Outer Tactical Vests that soldiers wear now and provide an additional 52 square inches of protection in the rear.
…

On Monday, the Army awarded two contracts for IOTVs: Specialty Defense Systems won a contract for 155,000 vests and Point Blank Body Armor Inc. won a contract for 75,000 vests, a PEO Soldier news release says.

In November 2005, the Army and Marine Corps recalled 18,425 sets of body armor manufactured by Point Blank because they did not meet certain ballistic criteria. The recall only affected the Outer Tactical Vests themselves, not the ballistic plates.

Prior to that, the Corps recalled another 5,277 sets of body armor made by Point Blank after a small sample of each lot failed to meet ballistic standards.

As I’ve pointed out before Point Blank Armor is a division of DHB Industries, owned by David H Brooks, your “classic deep-pockets Republican donor.”

Specialty Defense Systems is owned by Armor Holdings Aerospace and Defense Group, which has been very active in contracts supplying armor components to the military. BAE Systems Inc, one of the contractors involved in production of the Cougar MRAP, is attempting to buy Armor Holdings.

The Army announced a new, lighter, more efficient body armor for troops in April.

The Army began development of the IOTV in the spring of 2006, narrowing down industry offers from 17 to six later in the year. Testing among the remaining competitors was conducted by Soldiers at Fort Lewis, Wash. in January and February, the Army said.

Officials with PEO Soldier were unavailable to comment on which of the competitors will manufacture the new IOTV or how quickly it will be fielded.

Nothing has changed, even though troops are dying daily.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army is late in delivering newer, lighter body armor to soldiers downrange.

In April, an official with Program Executive Officer Soldier (PEO Soldier) said that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would begin to receive the Improved Outer Tactical Vests that month.

“The Army will begin fielding the IOTV April 07 as directed by [Headquarters, Department of the Army/ Army Central Command],” said Steven Pinter in an e-mailed response to questions to Stars and Stripes last month.

Awright! Good deal! A slightly better chance for a few young Americans to survive Mr Bu$h’s ego-war and come home alive.

Not exactly.

But the Army has not yet awarded a contract for the new body armor, according to PEO Soldier, the Army’s development center for advanced soldier equipment.

Officials at PEO Soldier declined to comment about why no contract has been awarded.

“It is not common Army practice to discuss pending contract awards in the media,” an e-mailed response from PEO says. “As soon as contracts are in place, PEO Soldier would be pleased to conduct an interview with Stars and Stripes.”

Asked if he could say why no such contract had been awarded, Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, who handles Army resources issues said, “No, I can’t.”

After all, it’s only been five weeks, and Mr Bu$h and Mr Rove have been preoccupied with trying to avoid being locked up in jail for their part in the burgeoning AttorneyGate scandal (and the soon-to-be-made-public scandal involving the FBI’s ultra-secret illegal domestic program) and they haven’t been able to make the appropriate deal with a Republican Party big pocket$ donor.

(On Greenwald’s column, pay attention to “Update II.”)

Sooner or later, as is the track record with the Bu$h malAdministration, they’ll get the graft squared away, and they’ll then start paying attention to the needs of the troops. Until that time, the delay will continue to be the fault of the Democratic Congress.

Amid all the ongoing controversy about the Point Blank Interceptor body armor the Army has been developing a new improved design for GIs’ combat armor.

Military.com has a long story about it, with limited nuts and bolts information, but it is positive in tone.

The new "Improved Outer Tactical Vest" is the first major redesign of Army body armor since the service began fielding the "Interceptor" Outer Tactical Vest in the late 1990s. The new armor incorporates many potentially life-saving features offered on more modern vests, including a quick release system, integrated side ballistic plate carriers and access points for medics.

The change comes after years of controversy over a shortage of body armor for troops in Iraq and revelations that both the Army and Marine Corps hastily fielded vests from production lots that had not passed ballistic quality assurance tests.

The “production lots that had not passed quality assurance tests” came from DHB Industries – the Point Blank armor currently supplied by the company started and owned by David H Brooks, the long-time Republican Party campaign donor. (See Shopping Safely In Baghdad)

The Army plans to field the vest to troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan, though it is still unclear what the total buy will be or when Soldiers readying for deployment will receive one.

The key difference from the current Interceptor is the IOTV's over-the-head entry system, similar to armor used by special operations forces. Army testers claim the vest has a more comfortable fit, with an inner cummerbund that helps distribute the weight of the vest onto a Soldier's waist rather than his shoulders and a mesh liner that helps keep Soldier cool under the burden of the heavy armor.

Army developers also claim the vest is three pounds lighter than the current OTV, which weighs about 30 pounds.

"This design significantly decreases the vest's profile and should increase mobility. And we believe mobility equals survivability," said PEO Soldier's Maj. Carl Fulmore.

There's more protective coverage as well. The IOTV has a higher cut under the arms, which means Soldiers won't need the extra under-arm protection of the Deltoid Axillary Protector set. And the vest incorporates a lower back flap that increases ballistic coverage by 52 inches, the Army said.

Three pounds isn’t a lot of weight, unless you have to tote it around with you inside a cramped vehicle, or run and duck while under fire in 120 degree heat. The inner mesh sounds like it might be a wise addition, too. The vest will use the same ceramic enhanced protective plates from the current system, and will come in 11 different size varieties, finally recognizing the fact that some people are taller or larger than others.

Some of the key survivability enhancements include a single-point quick release tab on the front of the vest that pulls it apart into several pieces with one tug. This feature, along with a tear-away access point on the shoulder, helps medical personnel treat injured Soldiers in a hurry. ... The Army began development of the IOTV in the spring of 2006, narrowing down industry offers from 17 to six later in the year. Testing among the remaining competitors was conducted by Soldiers at Fort Lewis, Wash. in January and February, the Army said.

Officials with PEO Soldier were unavailable to comment on which of the competitors will manufacture the new IOTV or how quickly it will be fielded.

There’s no point in asking how winter tests in Ft Lewis will show how well the new vest will keep troops cooler in Iraq. They might possibly save a life or four, and reduce the number of maimed soldiers.

I was all set to write a long, (and certainly tedious) piece about Senator McCain’s great safe walkabout the al-Sharqi open air market “just three minutes from the Green Zone.” Senator McCain spent about an hour in the market showing off demonstrating that there truly are areas in Baghdad where Americans can walk around safely in the daylight – especially if your shopping companions include 100 heavily armed US troops, a special counter-sniper bodyguard heel-stepping you, and three Blackhawk and two Apache helicopters hovering overhead. (Probably to carry the packages.) Video (and accompanying acid comments) available here and here.

It was such a safe trip that Senator Lindsey Graham, who accompanied McCain picked up five rugs for $5 a piece. Here’s hoping that VISA charge clears.

If you go and check out the video you may note that Senator McCain and the officer escort next to him (that must be the guy detailed to carry the packages) don’t seem to be wearing the same type of body armor we usually see the grunts wearing.

It looks like Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin armor, which is far superior to the Point Blank armor produced by deep-pockets Republican campaign contributor David H Brooks’ company, which is what the troops are required to wear. (See “Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin Body Armor Or Lose SGLI Death Benefits;
[But U.S. Generals In Afghanistan Wear It]” Scroll down to the article.

It was reported that six more Americans died in Iraq yesterday while Senator McCain, the "straight talking" train wreck had his ego-walk.

Don't miss this article!

VA-SEN: Blistering New Ad Hammers Allen Over Body Armor Vote

An independent group called Vote Vets -- which describes itself as a PAC for electing candidates "critical of the execution of the war in Iraq" to Congress -- has just unleashed a powerful new TV ad slamming GOP incumbent Senator George Allen over what it claims is a recent vote of his against funding body armor for troops in Iraq. The ad, which a group spokesman claims will run in major markets through Sunday, features a soldier back from Iraq named Pete Granato. "Senator George Allen voted against giving our troops this," Granato says, holding modern body armor up to the camera. "Now it's time for us to vote against him." If you want to see someone really going on offense against the GOP on national security, be sure not to miss this ad. More on this later.

This is one of the five best TV political ads I have ever seen. It’s the proper way to campaign against the scumbags the Republicans are putting into the field.

These guys are vets. They’re with us. Their hearts are up and they need support. In an election campaign everyone wants your money. These guys are brothers. Watch the ad and then decide if this is the sort of campaign you want to take our country back from the thieves.

Perhaps my 20 or so readers remember the name DHB Industries. I wrote about it here, and here, and here. David H Brooks and his amazing deep-pockets Bush donor armor is in the news again:

Former executives of US body armor firm arrested

U.S. authorities arrested two former top executives of a major body armor supplier to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies on Thursday and charged them with criminal securities fraud and insider trading.

Federal prosecutors alleged former Chief Financial Officer Dawn Schlegel and former Chief Operating Officer Sandra Hatfield manipulated DHB Industries Inc.'s books "to reap millions of dollars of profits through insider trading."

The lawsuit was a fresh blow to DHB. The U.S. military last year recalled thousands of protective vests sold by DHB's Point Blank Body Armor Inc. unit on quality concerns.

The company was recently delisted from the American Stock Exchange. Last month it placed Chief Executive David Brooks on indefinite leave pending the outcome of investigations.

Shares in Pompano Beach, Florida,-based DHB were down 2.6 percent at $3.00 each at midday in Pink Sheets trading.

To get delisted and posted to the pink sheets – the “penny stocks” is like driving Clemenza and his cannolis down to the end of Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn. Now, you can make money on penny stocks. I just cashed an $1100 dividend check from some 450 odd shares of stocks that I bought back in 1982. For me, that was a 400% profit, the sweetness somewhat lessened by the 24 year wait. I’d forgotten I owned the beast. Buying into the pink sheets is for folks who like to roll dice, bt can't afford the $10 bus ride to Atlantic City.

But Mr Brooks seems to have weathered it all somehow:

Even if 2004 wasn't the best year for your portfolio, it sure was for a lot of U.S. corporate executives and insiders. According to Thomson Financial data, last year was the second most lucrative on record for insiders as they sold $41 billion worth of their shares to the public, a figure that was up 40% from 2003. … Among the biggest sellers were…David H. Brooks of armor maker DHB Industries [who] sent $106 million worth of his shares to the open market on Dec. 29. The stock is off about 20% since that sale.

Gee, a 2004 sale. He certainly was lucky, wasn’t he? Or prescient. It almost looks like he sold off his shares in anticipation of…

There’s a form online, dated Aug 3, 2006, a mandatory filing for the SEC, Form 8-K which explains how Mr Brooks had his feet held to the fire by the SEC. Basically, they forced him to liquidate some of his go-go option bonus and return it to an escrow account to settle a class action lawsuit and a shareholders’ derivative lawsuit. To get out from under the lawsuits, Brooksie had to hand over about $21,825,000 in the settlement, if my math is right. Additionally, he was placed on “indefinite leave” pending the resolution of the lawsuits.

I hope you all realize that these two women were “bad apples” operating all by themselves. Don’t take the example of Enron and apply it to this case. Just because the Feds started with the lower down executives, and worked their way up the corporate ladder doesn’t mean that will happen in this case.

Of course not. Anyone who will be surprised if Mr Brooks suffers an unexpected heart attack right after his conviction, please raise your hands.

Thanks to Susie Madrak, the Uber Blonde, for the tip.

The DoD has introduced a new armored suit for tests in Iraq. They are patterned on those worn by EOD specialists and provide a better protection level than the cammies the troops now wear under their Interceptor armor, which is provided by Point Blank, a Florida company owned by David H Brooks, a very generous donor to the Republican Party. These suits are quite unsatisfactory, providing limited or no protection to torso sides, and the US Marine Corps has estimated that at least 90 fatalities could have been avoided if the troops were protected by better armor, such as Pinnacle’s Dragon Skin, which is considered the ‘Rolls Royce’ of body armor, and is only available for general officers.

On the plus side, the armor suits contain a water layer, which is designed to provide a cooling effect. On the minus side, the damned water cooling system doesn’t work well. Ah well, new equipment, beta testing and all that. I’m sure Bu$hCo would have teething problems if they introduced the Mark IV battle axe. They never seem to get anything right the first time, unless it’s sticking their hands into someone else’s wallet.

The protective suit, based on those worn by bomb disposal officers, was intended to cut spiraling casualties for one of the most dangerous jobs in modern warfare. But some troops have complained that the armour and headgear is inelegant. Others say the water-cooling system, designed for the soaring temperatures of an Iraqi summer, regularly breaks down. Nonetheless, the suits being tested in combat by US military police units in northern Iraq have produced good results. Capt Larry Bergeron told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes that the armour was credited with saving the lives of three men sprayed with shrapnel from roadside bombs. "One soldier's visor stopped a piece of shrapnel that hit dead centre," he said. "If he had not had that suit on, the effects could have been catastrophic."

I can’t disagree with the fact that a piece of shrapnel in the face is catastrophic, and the clear plastic shield is likely to save the Veterans Administration a lot of money downstream, caring for yet another soldier maimed for life.

Gunners on Humvees have high casualty rates. While newly-installed armour protects those inside, the gunner stands with the upper half of his body exposed, making him far more vulnerable to roadside bombs and gunfire. Others have been crushed as vehicles overturn. But Specialist Michael Floyd, 19, said: "I am not a big fan of this thing. It is really hot and hard to move around in. I do feel safer, but only in an explosion. I would not feel safer in a rollover or in small-arms fire." Critics say the heavy suits also restrict movement during combat.

Suck it, up, Floyd. At least they’re doing something three years into Mr Bush’s most excellent imperial adventure.

The suits are currently being tested by some MP units in the North where there is a very serious rejection problem with the locals, who seem to feel they were better off before we arrived to steal their oil depose Saddam liberate them.

Follow the first link to the newspaper article if you want to see these suits. Yeah, they look goofy and I’m sure they’re cumbersome in the dismount. But HMMV gunners aren’t supposed to be dismounts unless you have to unass because your unit's on fire. But I’ll bet if they save your life you’d change your opinion.

Maybe you remember the name David H. Brooks. That’s not the Republican operative who poses as a columnist for the New York Times. I mean the man who owns DHB Enterprises, the company that makes “Interceptor” body armor at its Florida subsidiary, Point Blank Armor.

In 1992, Brooks and his brother Jeffrey were investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their part in an insider-trading scandal. The brothers agreed to pay a $405,000 fine, without admitting any wrongdoing.

That same year, Brooks began a new business: making body armor designed to help wearers survive a potentially deadly bullet. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, profits soared at DHB Industries in Westbury, spiked by the company's sale of about 900,000 bullet-resistant vests to the military for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to financial records, DHB's annual sales grew to $340 million as of last July, compared with $98 million three years earlier.

But in the past few months, Brooks' once-little-known, publicly traded company has become increasingly controversial, with his own actions and his bullet-shielding vests under fire.

Probes, lawsuits

Congressional investigators have launched a review of the Defense Department's body armor program, including the "Interceptor" vests produced by Brooks' company. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Laura Kopelson, said government investigators -- spurred by congressional concerns that the vests may be inadequate to protect troops -- are expected to launch a full review of the body armor program by July.

In addition, lawsuits by angry investors filed recently in U.S. District Court in Central Islip allege Brooks and other top company officials broke federal securities laws with a "pump and dump" scheme designed to earn the officials large sums from stock sales while they issued "false and misleading" statements about problems surrounding the company's body armor. During one high-water mark for the stock in late 2004, Brooks, the company's chairman, sold off $185 million worth of his holdings; other executives also made millions.

As questions about the body armor's effectiveness arose, DHB stock, which traded above $20 a share in late 2004, dropped dramatically. It has hovered around $5 a share so far this year. Christopher J. Keller, one of the lawyers for the investors who are suing, said his clients lost "tens of millions of dollars" in stock value.

As questions about the body armor's effectiveness arose, DHB stock, which traded above $20 a share in late 2004, dropped dramatically. It has hovered around $5 a share so far this year. Christopher J. Keller, one of the lawyers for the investors who are suing, said his clients lost "tens of millions of dollars" in stock value.

"There is a furiousness by investors with what has happened at DHB," says Neil Rothstein, another plaintiffs' lawyer. Referring to the $185 million, Rothstein said of Brooks, "He should be paying back every cent of that money."

The investors became even more furious when they learned Brooks, 51, who lives in Old Westbury, spent millions on a November 2005 bat mitzvah party for his daughter at Manhattan's Rainbow Room. News reports said the party cost nearly $10 million and featured performers including rapper 50 Cent and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.

This is a bad thing, because this company’s armor is apparently not very good. Several police agencies have returned entire shipments because of defective materials, defective manufacturing processes, and inadequate levels of protection. When you make a product that is claimed to be able to stop a rifle bullet and it won’t stop a 9mm, for instance, that’s what you call a POS.

Interceptor armor has such a poor rep that some troops deploying to Iraq and/or Afghanistan have been buying their own armor, or their parents are buying it for them, because a child is a big investment, you know? You want to protect your investments.

There’s nothing to say about the alleged $10 million he spent on his little Princess’s bat mitzvah That’s Page Six gossip nonsense. He’s got the cash in his bank account; how he spends it is up to him.

Ah, but the armor……

However, legal representatives for Brooks and his company say the lawsuit has no merit and that criticism of Brooks' personal financial dealings is unfair. They also point to a $54-million order announced this month by the Army for more DHB body armor as a sign of a continuing good relationship with the military.

DHB officials insist that no troops have been endangered because of their products, and that most of their anti-ballistic vests have used bullet-resistant materials other than Zylon. Last year, the National Institute of Justice, a research and advisory branch of the Justice Department, revoked its approval for the body armor using Zylon, which was found to deteriorate when exposed to high temperatures in sunlight. By August, DHB, like other body armor manufacturers, said it would stop using Zylon in vests. It also announced a voluntary recall of existing vests containing the material, and took a $60-million third-quarter charge for costs of the replacement program.

The armor deteriorates in high temperatures? In sunlight? No problem. Just have the troops in Iraq not go out during the daytime in that 120 degree Iraq summer. Keep ‘em in the camps.

But you know how parents are. Not all of them can spend $10 Mil on a party, but they do want to give their kids every chance to come home alive and in one piece so they’ll take out that second mortgage to buy Dragon Skin for a reported $6,000. They’ve been buying Dragon Skin, the Rolls Royce of body armor for their children. It’s made by a company named Pinnacle Armor in California, and apparently is all that Point Blank isn’t.

But there is a problem there.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor other than the protective gear issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday, the latest twist in a running battle over the equipment the Pentagon gives its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies - including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.

"We're very concerned that people are spending their hard-earned money on something that doesn't provide the level of protection that the Army requires people to wear. So they're, frankly, wasting their money on substandard stuff," said Col. Thomas Spoehr, director of materiel for the Army.

There were reports several weeks ago that General Officers will only wear Dragon Skin in the sandbox. Murray Neal, chief executive officer of Pinnacle, said

"We know of no reason the Army may have to justify this action," Neal said. "On the surface this looks to be another of many attempts by the Army to cover up the billions of dollars spent on ineffective body armor systems which they continue to try quick fixes on to no avail."

If you’d like to learn more than you ever thought you needed to know about this body armor, go here. The Level IV sounds just perfect for defense against people annoyed that Mr Bush sent you to their country to steal their oil liberate them.

I don’t know. A cynical man would say that, back when Point Blank was selling at $5 a share, Mr Rumsfeld saw a terrific buying opportunity. But that would be wrong. You don’t think Mr Rumsfeld is more interested in his stock portfolio than in the lives of the grunts, do you?

Is anyone surprised that David H, Brooks is a serious Republican campaign donor? Not up to Pioneer or Ranger level, but still respectable.

We reported earlier about 1LT Rebrook, who was wounded in Iraq, and when separating out of active duty, was billed $700 for "losing" his body armor, which was removed by medics and apparently burned as hazardous medical waste.

Donations have poured in, and the charity cup is overflowing.

UPDATE: We've collected well over $5,000. So, I'm pulling the plug on the links to donate. Thanks so much guys. I'm contacting the service member now, have his phone number, to let him know. I'm going to suggest it might be nice to share the money with other service members he knows have faced the same problem.

Thanks to all who helped. I'm "reasonably" confident very few Republicans bothered to donate anything.

I'm proud of all of you.

Reported by the Charleston (WV) Gazette:

Soldier pays for armor

The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.

A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.

But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.

“I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter,” Rebrook said. “They took it off me and burned it.”

But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.

There’s a very interesting article over on TeamBIO (ex-Bring It on) written by an Army wife whose husband is in Iraq. Tammara Rosenleaf doesn’t type with uppercase letters, and while this makes reading difficult, the subject is important.

first of all, my husband is currently in iraq, consequently, both of us are living in hell. there are mortars lobbed into his base area quite regularly, and many soldiers sleep in their armor. he has been in iraq for only a short time, and already 9 in his group are dead.(see this makes 9 under military on this blog) when he went, he did not have the proper armor, he received some of it after he had already traveled to iraq from kuwait, manning a 50 cal gun.you need to know that he would have gladly worn the rest of the armor if he had it. he is not alone in this situation, many of those in his unit were without armor as well. it was not until charlie anderson of ivaw and i began the bake sales project, and were interviewd in stars and stripes that he and his unit got all their armor.

The bake sale concept was created by Tammara Rosenleaf of Military Families Speak Out, and Charlie Anderson from IVAW, whose website is currently inoperative for some reason. It’s an idea that was formed out of desperation because of the refusal to adequately supply troops that Bu$hCo sent out to conquer a defenseless country.

my husband signed up to be a soldier because he believed in serving his country, and our bill of rights, and to pay his student loans. (the army’s failure to make good on this is the subject of a congressional inquiry that i have filed) he believes in what i am doing, and says that it would be a poor reward for his sacrifice if i failed to exercise the rights he has signed on to defend. he is not unclear about what he is doing in iraq, and he knows that it has nothing to do with defending our country, or our bill of rights.

It’s interesting that Tammara’s husband’s unit got the needed armor only after the Stars and Stripes writeup. What the hell kind of a logistical system do we have when urgent supplies are only issued after the bright light of sunshine invades the dank, dark cellars of this administration?

They just don’t give a crap about the troops, and HalliCheneyBurton, Bechtel and the flag officers understand this.

Nice bumper sticker they have too. Well worth a click. Get a meaningful for your car, and help a soldier live to come home in one piece.

“I’ve told many family I’ve met with, ‘We’re doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones.’”

-- George W. Bush, December 2004

The history of the Point Blank Interceptor OTV body armor vest and the company that manufactures it is a shameful tale of the state of war profiteering in the Rumsfeld age.

The Interceptor OTV is the body armor jacket recently revealed by Defense Watch to have been identified by a U.S. Marine Corps forensics report as being responsible for the deaths of "as many as 42 percent of Marines who died from isolated torso injuries." The Point Blank vest is not only inferior in design--it leaves the shoulders and upper arms unprotected--it was fielded despite that fact that it did not pass tests of its designed capabilities.

As The Army Times reported, senior officers in the Marine Corps Systems Command knew that and bought and fielded the Point Blank body armor anyway, without telling commanders in the field about the vests' shortcomings.

And the company that manufactured the vests made a whole lot of money.

#

In September of 2005 Trevor Aaronson of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times ran a comprehensive report on the company that produced the armor.

Point Blank…was once a struggling, New York-based manufacturer teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. In 1995, another body-armor producer, DHB Industries, rescued the company from insolvency and moved its operation to a factory in Oakland Park.

[…]

In 1999, DHB Industries, whose Point Blank division accounts for most of its revenue, lost $22.3 million on $35.1 million in revenue. The next year, the company eked out a $5.7 million profit on $70 million in sales. Then came 9/11, and DHB/Point Blank's profits soared. In 2001 and 2002, thanks to several multimillion-dollar contracts from the Department of Defense, which was reacting to a well-publicized shortage of body armor in the military, the company earned $10.1 million and $16 million, respectively, on a combined $228.3 million in revenue.

"We believe the uptick in state, federal, and military spending on body armor is still in the early stages," CEO Brooks told investors on August 6, 2002. "The war on terrorism and a heightened focus on homeland security bode well for the business prospects at DHB."

One day later, Point Blank received yet another order from the military. This one, worth $9.2 million, required the company to manufacture body armor to be used by Army engineers charged with disposing of landmines.
But around the same time, a heated labor dispute exposed a policy at Point Blank that apparently put profits before quality.

Allegations that Point Blank Body Armor has sold defective or improperly sized body armor first came in 2002.

Company line employees were paid at or close to minimum wage and suffered from miserable working conditions. They staged a demonstration and demanded the right to form a union under the UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees) umbrella.

That led to three lawsuits filed in local and federal courts. In one suit, Point Blank alleged that UNITE officials had falsely accused the company of quality assurance negligence. In response, UNITE submitted 150 pages of documentation.

One of those documents described an April 2002 evaluation by the New York Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau of 1,000 body armor vests that Point Blank had sold to the New York Police Department. 900--90 percent--failed the tests the were submitted to. Some vests were improperly sized, which would have left officers' abdomens exposed. Others failed to stop bullets they were designed to protect against.

Similar documented complaints of improper sizing were reported by U.S. military troops in Afghanistan.

One Point Blank quality control worker testified that he was dismissed from his quality control job because he was finding too many quality control problems.

Yet another employee stated that her whole job consisted of changing the size labels to match the requirements of the batch order. "Sometimes I erase the old size with alcohol, and I use a stamp to place a new size on the vest," she said.

#

In a separate court case, the Southern States Police Benevolent Association (SSPBA) filed a class action lawsuit against Point Blank in April of 2005, claiming that Point Blank knew it was selling defective body armor.

#

In 2004, DHB industries Point Blank Body Armor chairman David H. Brooks earned $70 million plus $180 million in company stock sales.

In December of 2005, Brooks reportedly spent $10 million on his daughter's bat mitzvah party. Entertainment was provided by Tom Petty, Aerosmith, and 50 Cent.

#

From the Broward-Palm Beach New Times:

On Point Blank's catalogs and website, Old Glory is draped behind soldiers and the company's trademark: "Protecting America's Heroes." At the company headquarters in Pompano Beach, three flagpoles stand high above a plaque that reads: "These flagpoles erected and dedicated to the memory of America's fallen heroes by Point Blank Body Armor, Inc."

Support the troops.

Cross posted at Pen and Swordand ePluribus Media

Nathaniel Helms of Soldiers for the Truth brings us this bit of information concerning the ongoing body armor scandal.

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, 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 told to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action, they said.

Not surprisingly, these two soldiers asked remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from their superiors in the chain of command.

On Saturday, another soldier affected by the ban told Helms that U.S. Special Operations Command had issued a directive banning "all" commercially available armor.

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.

At issue is the inferiority of standard military issue Interceptor OTV vests manufactured by Point Blank Body Armor to Dragon Skin and other commercially available body armor.

Last week DefenseWatch released a secret Marine Corps report that determined that 80% of the 401 Marines killed in Iraq between April 2004 and June 2005 might have been saved if the Interceptor OTV body armor they were wearing was more effective. The Army has declined to comment on the report because doing so could aid the enemy, an Army spokesman has repeatedly said. [Italics added.]

It sounds like this Army spokesman has picked up on the standard Rumsfeld Pentagon double talk. A casual observer might question whether sending soldiers into battle with inferior armor isn't the thing that aids the enemy, and whether talking about the problem might not actually fix it and defeat the enemy.

Of course, we've become so used to denial from the Pentagon and the administration's supporters we don't expect honesty.

According to Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press, Senator John Warner R-Va claims that he's satisfied the military is ensuring the troops have adequate body armor. "Everything that can be done, is being done," he says.

Marine Major General William Cato says, "We're fielding the best body armor and equipment available, we think, in the world today, and as we have the opportunity to upgrade the equipment, we do that."

And of course, renowned military affairs expert Michelle Malkin says the body armor situation is totally hunky dory, so I guess that's the last word on that.

The Bomb That Keeps On Ticking

Ms. Malkin also quotes General Cato as saying, "There is nothing more important to the Marine Corps than protecting Marines."

That's big pill to swallow in light of an article filed last May by Christian Lowe of the Army Times.

Lowe reported that in July of 2004…

The Marine Corps issued to nearly 10,000 troops body armor that government experts urged the Corps to reject after tests revealed critical, life-threatening flaws in the vests.

In all, the Marine Corps accepted about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. that failed government tests due to “multiple complete penetrations” of 9mm pistol rounds, failing scores on other ballistic or quality-assurance tests, or a combination of the two.

The ballistics expert who initially rejected the vests was James MacKiewicz, who works at the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass. MacKiewicz has 18 years of experience with ballistics and armor systems.

The Defense Contract Management Agency concurred with Mackiewicz's assessment and recommended the vests be rejected.

But the Marine Corps program manager in charge of acquiring and fielding the vests overrode those recommendations. Lieutanant Colonel Gabriel Patricio and Sandra Hatfield, Point Blank's chief operating officer. Over the course of ten months, Patricio waived and accepted over 20 lots of tactical vests that had not passed government tests.

Patricio did not do this solely on his own authority. The waivers were approved by none other that Major General William Cato. In a written memo, he said…

I concurred with the program manager’s decision to waive the 11 lots in order to rapidly replace the PASGT flaks with a superior, advanced body-armor system. Due to the massive deployment associated with [Operation Iraqi Freedom], this was considered to be an urgent need, and was deemed to be in the best interest of deployed Marines at that time.

One might be tempted to forgive Patricio and Cato for sending Marines rejected modern body armor to replace Vietnam era flak jackets as a choice of the lesser of two evils. However, any sympathy they may warrant has to be tempered with the fact that field commanders were not informed about the flaws in the Interceptor vests.

The Marine Corps eventually recalled over 5,000 of the flawed vests, but only under pressure of imminent publication of an eight-month investigation on the story by the Marine Corps Times.

As author Lowe describes at length, the history of acquisition horseplay and finger pointing between Point Blank and the government goes back to 2003, when ballistics inspector MacKiewicz first drafted memos warning of a problem with the Point Blank's vests. But questions about Point Blank's product had arisen elsewhere a year earlier.

Trevor Aaronsen of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reveals that in 2002, 900 out of 1,000 Point Blank vests sold to the New York Police Department were found to be defective by New York Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau.

But even more alarming, in Lowe's view, were the indications that the company knew it was shipping defective products.

Next: The War Profits of Point Blank CEO David H. Brooks

Via Military.com we learn that

WASHINGTON - The military is recalling more than 18,000 protective vests because they did not meet ballistic test standards when the body armor was made up to five years ago. It is the second recall in about six months.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Douglas Powell and Army spokesman Paul Boyce said no Marines or soldiers were at risk because the vest met field test requirements. The vests did not meet the higher manufacturing standards. Officials discovered the problems in September.

So, if I read this right, the field test standards are less exacting than the manufacturing standards? It’s more important for the vest to function properly on a dummy in a testing lab than on a troop in the field?

The Marines said they recalled the vests to alleviate any doubts caused by a story in the Marine Corps Times, but service officials insisted they did not believe the vests are faulty. Most of the Point Blank vests passed the tests, but several fell short of the Marines' standards during testing in 2004. At the time, the company said it stands by its products and that there had been no reported failures in the field. The vests are designed to withstand small arms munitions fired at a certain velocity. The contract specification is higher than the potential threat level in the field, Boyce and Powell said, and therefore there were no incidents where troops were injured because the vest failed.

I’m appalled that Marine Corps standards are higher than the Army’s. Glad for the Marines, disgusted otherwise.

Almost 2100 dead and not one of these killed by a failure of a vest that has been recalled for deficiencies?

The rule of the 6 Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

Seems that soldiers over in Iraq are still without either body armor, or if they've gone out and bought their own body armor, without reimbursement for the money they've spent.

Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.
...
Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke said the department “is in the final stages of putting a reimbursement program together and it is expected to be operating soon.” But defense officials would not discuss the reason for the delay.

Krenke said the Pentagon’s first priority is to ensure that soldiers “have all they need to fight and win this nation’s wars.”
...
Soldiers and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees, medical supplies and even global positioning devices.

“The bottom line is that Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department are failing soldiers again,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Operation Truth, an advocacy group for Iraq veterans.

“It just became an accepted part of the culture. If you were National Guard or Reserve, or NCOs, noncommissioned officers, you were going to spend a lot of money out of your pocket,” said Rieckhoff, who was a platoon leader with the 3rd Infantry Division and served in Iraq from the invasion in March 2003 to spring 2004.

On the other hand, if you're a huuuge contributor to the Bush Administration, like some companies that won't be named halliburton, you not only get paid, you don't even have to bid for contracts to get piles of taxpayer-supplied cash.

It's another sign that the civilians running the Pentagon know nothing about the wars they have been complicit in starting, or how to wage them. The dumbest second lieutenant or ensign knows that taking care of your troops is their NUMBER ONE priority. Pentagon civilians and others in charge of this administration's alleged "policy" apparatus never learned that little, incontrovertable fact. They were too busy reading the "One Minute Manager" and getting their mail-order MBAs while doing their part as party functionaries to learn that simple ground truth.

So many people have said "you don't have to be a Veteran to know how to fight a war". True. But looking at BS like this, it's certainly clear that any competant vet would not leave these troops over-exposed and not reimbursed.