U.S. Army Bans Privately Purchased Body Armor
On March 30, 2006 the Army banned all privately purchased commercial body armor in theater. Army officials told the Associated Press that the ban order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies. The Army ban refers specifically to Pinnacle's Dragon Skin armor saying that the company advertising implies that Dragon Skin "is superior in performance" to the Interceptor Body Armor the military issues to soldiers. The Marine Corps has not issued a similar directive, but Marines are "encouraged to wear Marine Corps-issued body armor since this armor has been tested to meet fleet standards." NBC News learned that well after the Army ban that select elite forces assigned to protect generals and VIPs in Iraq and Afghanistan wore Dragon Skin. General Peter W. Chiarelli made a statement that, "he never wore Dragon Skin but that some members of his staff did wear a lighter version of the banned armor on certain limited occasions, despite the Army ban."
Read more about this topic: Dragon Skin
Famous quotes containing the words army, privately, purchased, body and/or armor:
“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Rape is a culturally fostered means of suppressing women. Legally we say we deplore it, but mythically we romanticize and perpetuate it, and privately we excuse and overlook it.”
—Victoria Billings (b. 1945)
“The class at Harvard in 1851, have purchased for themselves a notoriety they will not covet in years to come.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“I think that if most guys in America could somehow get their fave-rave poster girl in bed and have total license to do whatever they wanted with this legendary body for one afternoon, at least 75 percent of the guys in the country would elect to beat her up.”
—Lester Bangs (1948–1982)
“Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)