Soldiers must shed home bought body armor or lose death benefits!

[Analog]

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. 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.



"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.

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[leftyman]

remember "you go to war with the army you have" :disgust:

 

[Sphexi]

Stupid. We aren't providing them with armored vehicles, the proper equipment, or body armor that's up to standards, yet they go out and get their own they're told they can't use it? How about since they're over there, and there's about a hundred different ways to die that have NOTHING to do with body armor, we just shut the hell up and pay the benefit if the worst should happen. Are insurance companies that greedy that they'd deny families what they're owed based on some goddamn technicality?

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
Stupid. We aren't providing them with armored vehicles, the proper equipment, or body armor that's up to standards, yet they go out and get their own they're told they can't use it? How about since they're over there, and there's about a hundred different ways to die that have NOTHING to do with body armor, we just shut the hell up and pay the benefit if the worst should happen. Are insurance companies that greedy that they'd deny families what they're owed based on some goddamn technicality?

Unfortunately, yes. :/

 

[elbosco]

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.

I wonder they have to remove their body armor.

 

[skace]

Well, they are wearing the vests to survive not to die. If I was the parent of one of those kids, I'd tell him to keep the vest on, I don't give a sh!t about money if you die, I want you to come home alive.

 

[JLGatsby]

We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

Oh, they have vests. They're just not as good. Here how it works:

1. US Government needs new vests/armor.
2. US Government decides to spend $10 million developing new vests.
3. US Government takes bids, picks a company, pays them $10 million.
4. Company overruns budget, takes 5 years to do a job they could've in 1 year, end up costing US Government $30 million.
5. 10 private companies spend $100k each to develop lighter, tougher armor, offer it to the US Government, but because of the huge waste of money spent on the original armor, US Government refuses better armor, saying they have to use their armor for the "useful lifetime" of the product.
6. Soldiers suffer.

 

[pontifex]

yeah, thats ridiculous. the government and military have some odd rules

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

Oh, they have vests. They're just not as good. Here how it works:

1. US Government needs new vests/armor.
2. US Government decides to spend $10 million developing new vests.
3. US Government takes bids, picks a company, pays them $10 million.
4. Company overruns budget, takes 5 years to do a job they could've in 1 year, end up costing US Government $30 million.
5. 10 private companies spend $100k each to develop lighter, tougher armor, offer it to the US Government, but because of the huge waste of money spent on the original armor, US Government refuses better armor, saying they have to use their armor for the "useful lifetime" of the product.
6. Soldiers suffer.

The US government should not be developing anything the private sector can do.

They once made a movie about the development of the Bradley fighting vehicle, I forget the name of the movie, but it was a good example of how "great" government is at developing things.

Too much bureaucracy hurts everyone.

 

[Sphexi]

Well think about it. If you just blew $1000 on something you'd been waiting for for a long time, and suddenly something better came along that only cost $500, would you go out and buy it too? Probably not, you'd ride out your initial purchase for a while, wait for something even better.

What I don't get is why they don't evaluate the armor, acknowledge how good it is, and let the soldiers buy it themselves.

 

[Codewiz]

The reason this is done is that in the military EVERYONE gets the same equipment. We are opening a whole can of worms if we let people bring their own armor in. What happens if it breaks or needs repair? Yes I would like to say that they should be able to bring whatever they want but it just isn't as easy as that.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

Oh, they have vests. They're just not as good. Here how it works:

1. US Government needs new vests/armor.
2. US Government decides to spend $10 million developing new vests.
3. US Government takes bids, picks a company, pays them $10 million.
4. Company overruns budget, takes 5 years to do a job they could've in 1 year, end up costing US Government $30 million.
5. 10 private companies spend $100k each to develop lighter, tougher armor, offer it to the US Government, but because of the huge waste of money spent on the original armor, US Government refuses better armor, saying they have to use their armor for the "useful lifetime" of the product.
6. Soldiers suffer.

You obviously have no idea how the acquisitions cycle works in the government.

There are multiple ways the government goes about acquiring things like armor. The armor we currectly use in the military is pretty good. The draw back in how easily you can manuever. How do I know? Because I was in Iraq and I had to wear it.

For the most part, the government develops very little these days. The government relies on private/commercial industry to provide the capabilities.

Where you see a lot of waste is in developing new vehicles, ie planes, trucks, tanks and so on.....

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

Oh, they have vests. They're just not as good. Here how it works:

1. US Government needs new vests/armor.
2. US Government decides to spend $10 million developing new vests.
3. US Government takes bids, picks a company, pays them $10 million.
4. Company overruns budget, takes 5 years to do a job they could've in 1 year, end up costing US Government $30 million.
5. 10 private companies spend $100k each to develop lighter, tougher armor, offer it to the US Government, but because of the huge waste of money spent on the original armor, US Government refuses better armor, saying they have to use their armor for the "useful lifetime" of the product.
6. Soldiers suffer.

totally right.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: Codewiz

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
We can buy billion dollar stealth bombers we rarely use but we can't buy our troops armored vests?

Oh, they have vests. They're just not as good. Here how it works:

1. US Government needs new vests/armor.
2. US Government decides to spend $10 million developing new vests.
3. US Government takes bids, picks a company, pays them $10 million.
4. Company overruns budget, takes 5 years to do a job they could've in 1 year, end up costing US Government $30 million.
5. 10 private companies spend $100k each to develop lighter, tougher armor, offer it to the US Government, but because of the huge waste of money spent on the original armor, US Government refuses better armor, saying they have to use their armor for the "useful lifetime" of the product.
6. Soldiers suffer.

You obviously have no idea how the acquisitions cycle works in the government.

There are multiple ways the government goes about acquiring things like armor. The armor we currectly use in the military is pretty good. The draw back in how easily you can manuever. How do I know? Because I was in Iraq and I had to wear it.

For the most part, the government develops very little these days. The government relies on private/commercial industry to provide the capabilities.

Where you see a lot of waste is in developing new vehicles, ie planes, trucks, tanks and so on.....

Wearing the armor doesn't mean you know how they obtained it. Obviously I was generalizing a LOT, but the basic idea is pretty sound.

 

[Specop 007]

First off, I'm a bit skeptical of exactly how this went down.

Dragon Skin, from everything I've heard, is the cats ass of armor. That said, what happens when a GI dies wearing Dragon Skin instead of the issued stuff? Is Dragon Skin proven to be better then the issued stuff?

As for denying benefits, I'm also skeptical on that. *I* would venture to say its a commander overstepping his bounds, but obviously I cant say that for sure.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

That's full of sh|t. There's like 1 set of body armor for every 200 ground pounder.

 

[Specop 007]

Originally posted by: Nik
That's full of sh|t. There's like 1 set of body armor for every 200 ground pounder.

Source?

Everything I've heard from the guys who are over there says differently.

 

[meltdown75]

The sad thing about this is that if that one soldier wouldn't have stood up and asked Bush a question regarding equipment during that televised press conference not long ago, the media and the public at large would have no clue about this issue.

Makes you wonder just how many issues like this are being brushed under the carpet.

 

[moshquerade]

this is so Political Forum material guys.

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: moshquerade
this is so Political Forum material guys.

Not to be insensitive to your thread, because i sympathize with your issue....
but PEE and ENN is thataway ------->

 

[EagleKeeper]

More than likely, they were told to use the issued armour rather than the personal.
By using persona larmour when the issued armour is available, could cause legal issues.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I don't think this would be likely to actually affect their ability to be paid SGLI in practice.

In general the military prefers (and usually demands) that troops use issued equipment to ensure interoperability (and, in the case of small arms, to ensure that the weapons used comply with the law of war). A commander could, in my opinion, lawfully order a soldier to use issue armor rather than personally-purchased armor, but I don't see that using personal armor could affect a person's right to SGLI.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Any real news site have something about this?

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Originally posted by: Specop 007

Originally posted by: Nik
That's full of sh|t. There's like 1 set of body armor for every 200 ground pounder.

Source?

Everything I've heard from the guys who are over there says differently.

Said by an army grunt whose leave ended and he was redeployed to Iraq this past friday.