Pentagon Includes Body Armor Sought by Courtney

By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer.
Published: Monday, October 20, 2008

U.S. Rep. Joseph D. Courtney, D-2nd District, says he’s made good on a 2-year-old campaign promise to help get better body armor for the nation’s combat troops.

Pointing to the fiscal 2009 Department of Defense authorization signed into law last week, Courtney says the legislation included language from a bill he introduced this year to expand the authority of an independent Pentagon agency to test and evaluate body armor issued by all of the military services.

"As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I was deeply alarmed about reports from families and, in some cases, by the troops themselves, who were concerned their were not getting the best body armor available," the freshman lawmaker said.

"The men and women who proudly serve in our nation’s armed forces deserve nothing less than the best protection available," he added.

Courtney in May 2007 led a bipartisan effort to ask the Government Accountability Office to conduct an independent reassessment of the various body armor systems employed by each military branch.

He cited news reports suggesting that privately sold flexible body armor some families were buying for their soldiers, called "Dragon Skin," might be better than the "Interceptor" armor issued by the Army.

Courtney and the 39 other lawmakers who joined the effort said after the Army contended that Dragon Skin had failed extensive military testing that they wanted the two systems compared.

The GAO subsequently agreed to oversee new testing, and Courtney last spring visited Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the Army is conducting its tests.

A month after the congressional request to the GAO, Courtney said, he and three other lawmakers visited Iraq and Afghanistan and saw that the diplomats they met and the private contractors who accompanied them wore Dragon Skin — while the U.S. troops they encountered were equipped with Interceptor.

Courtney also said that he had voted against a supplemental Iraq war-spending bill in part because it had been stripped of provisions requiring better protection for troops there.

The testing issue also played a role in Courtney's 2006 election campaign against former Rep. Robert R. Simmons, a Republican whom the Vernon Democrat narrowly defeated.

Courtney had been joined on the campaign trail by Gordon Mello, a former Somers first selectman and Marine veteran, who complained that his son had been sent to Iraq without full body armor.