Retired General is president of Co. that supplied the useless body armor

[Oilwellian]

Well look at what I just discovered....I've been reading Pen & Sword Blog which is doing a good job of covering the body armor scandal. Here's the latest:

"Allegations that Point Blank Body Armor has sold defective or improperly sized body armor first came in 2002.

Company line employees were paid at or close to minimum wage and suffered from miserable working conditions. They staged a demonstration and demanded the right to form a union under the UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees) umbrella.

That led to three lawsuits filed in local and federal courts. In one suit, Point Blank alleged that UNITE officials had falsely accused the company of quality assurance negligence. In response, UNITE submitted 150 pages of documentation.

One of those documents described an April 2002 evaluation by the New York Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau of 1,000 body armor vests that Point Blank had sold to the New York Police Department. 900--90 percent--failed the tests the were submitted to. Some vests were improperly sized, which would have left officers' abdomens exposed. Others failed to stop bullets they were designed to protect against.

Similar documented complaints of improper sizing were reported by U.S. military troops in Afghanistan.

One Point Blank quality control worker testified that he was dismissed from his quality control job because he was finding too many quality control problems."

Point Blank Body Armor is a subsidiary of DHB Industries, Inc. Well guess who the president is?

Retired General Larry Ellis.

http://www.dhbindustries.com/pressreleases.asp#120105

And guess who's fond of General Ellis?

Military officials told Knight Ridder that Rumsfeld has considered only two of the 11 serving four-star Army generals, Franks and Forces Command commander Gen. Larry Ellis, to succeed Shinseki."

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Galloway_042603,00.html

[rumpel]

1. what a disgrace.

[Oilwellian]

2. Morning kick n/t

:kick:

[Solly Mack]

3. Defense contractors recruit from among upcoming retiring officers

It's been going on for years.

Long before retirement, defense contractors make the rounds of the military brass - seeking favorable endorsements of their products. It's a fairly corrupt system.