- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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.
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- As of this report Saturday morning the Army has not
yet responded to a DefenseWatch inquiry.
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- Recently Dragon Skin became an item of contention between
proponents of the Interceptor OTV body armor generally issued to all service
members deploying in combat theaters and its growing legion of critics.
Critics of the Interceptor OTV system say it is ineffective and inferior
to Dragon Skin, as well as several other commercially available body armor
systems on the market. 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.
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- A U.S. Army spokesman was not available for comment
at the time DW's original report (Friday - 1700 CST) was published. DefenseWatch
continues to seek a response from the Army and will post one as soon as
it becomes available. Yesterday the DoD released a news story through the
Armed Forces News Service that quoted Maj. Gen. Steven Speaks, the Army's
director of force development, who countered critical media reports by
denying that the U.S. military is behind the curve in providing appropriate
force protection gear for troops deployed to Iraq and elsewhere in the
global war against terrorism. The New York Tiimes and Washington Post led
the bandwagon of mainstream media that capitalized on DefenseWatch's release
of the Marine Corps study. Both newspapers released the forensic information
the Army and Marines are unwilling to discuss.
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- "Those headlines entirely miss the point,"
Speaks said.
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- The effort to improve body armor "has been a programmatic
effort in the case of the Army that has gone on with great intensity for
the last five months," he noted.
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- Speaks' assessment contradicts earlier Army, Marine
and DoD statements that indicated as late as last week that the Army was
certain there was nothing wrong with Interceptor OTV body armor and that
it was and remains the "best body armor in the world."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Pinnacle claims more than 3,000 soldiers and civilians
stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing Dragon Skin body armor, Chopra
said. Several months ago DefenseWatch began receiving anecdotal reports
from individual soldiers that they were being forced to remove all non-issue
gear while in theater, including Dragon Skin body armor, boots, and various
kinds of non-issue ancillary equipment.
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- Last year the DoD, under severe pressure from Congress,
authorized a one-time $1,000 reimbursement to soldiers who had purchased
civilian equipment to supplement either inadequate or unavailable equipment
they needed for combat operations. At the time there was no restriction
on what the soldiers could buy as long as it was specifically intended
to offer personal protection or further their mission capabilities while
in theater.
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- Nathaniel R. Helms is the editor of DefenseWatch Magazine.
He can be reached at natshouse1@chater.net. Please send all inquiries and
comments to dwfeedback@yahoo.com
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