Dragon Skin

It is good enough body armor that nine American generals in Afghanistan are wearing it in place of the standard "Interceptor OTV" armor issued to the troops they command. It offers such great protection that the U.S. Secret Service agents guarding the President of the United States wear it, and it is good enough that a civilian contractor in Iraq was shot eight times in the torso at close range and survived without even suffering soft tissue trauma. But the same armor, already in mass production, is apparently too expensive to provide to the men and women fighting and dying in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) every day...

A complete suit of Dragon Skin armor, at more than $5,000 per copy, currently costs about five times as much as Interceptor OTV body armor being issued to the troops. Inceptor armor is primarily produced by two giant companies, Armor Holdings Corporation, the current darling of the Defense Department that has more government contracts than a junk yard dog has fleas, and Point Blank Body Armor, the flagship company of DHB Industries that is currently in the dog house. They can both afford to make it cheap.

Several armor experts, who design, manufacture and sell body armor to individuals and police agencies said that size, cost, and accessibility is what drives the Pentagon's decision on what to buy and whom to buy it from. The same explanation begs the question of how much the lives of America's fighting men and women are worth, they said. Granted, Dragon Skin does have a hefty price tag, but it also save lives, they unanimously agreed. Read more here.

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Reports like this one (as seen on the Today Show this morning) make me sad because of the hypocrisy of our military leaders. I want THE BEST for our soldiers - my son being one of them.