Soldiers ordered not to use body armor

Via Americablog, a soldier's website tells us that the US is telling soldiers that if they purchase their own body armor, they won't be covered under their military life insurance policies. This government just never ceases to amaze me. What could be the reason here? To maintain a monopoly for whoever [fails to] produce[s] body armor under the government contract? Seems to me if they can't deliver, they don't deserve the monopoly. I wonder who the contractor is -- I'm guessing some company related to Haliburton.

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....

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.

Update: From what I can tell, the Pentagon does have a sole supplier of body armor. It is Point Blank Body Armor, which is a subsidiary of DHB Industries. DHB is a public company. It's CEO is a David H. Brooks. In my brief research, I haven't found any direct links to the Bush administration, but I may keep on looking. If anyone else has anything on them, let me know.

Update II: David H. Brooks gave his daughter a $10,000,000 bat mitzvah last year. He earned $70 million in compensation from his body armor et al business in 2004. War profits are nice, aren't they? He only made a salary of $575,000 the year before.

Update III: The Socialist Worker, not always the most accurate of publications, has the following to say about Brooks:

Brooks is a corporate crook of the highest order. In 1992, he was implicated in an insider-trading scam, and since then, he’s racked up several Securities and Exchange Commission complaints for shady deals. DHB is also known for union-busting. Last year, it was found guilty of labor law violations for firing, locking out and threatening employees at its Fort Lauderdale, Fla., plant.


But none of that stopped the Pentagon last month from awarding DHB a $77 million contract to supply troops overseas--the largest order for body armor in Defense Department history--just months after it had handed DHB a $60 million contract. Specifically, the new Pentagon contract is for thousands of Interceptor vests--a heavier version of the type of vests that DHB has supplied to the New York Police Department.