Are U.S. soldiers wearing the best body armor?

Some inside and outside the Army have questioned the fairness of the Army’s testing.

For seven years, Nevin Rupert had an insider's view of the Army's treatment of Dragon Skin. He is a mechanical engineer and ballistics expert who monitored Dragon Skin's development for the Army.  He claims the Army never gave Dragon Skin a fair shot.

“I believe there are some Army officials at the lower levels that deliberately tried to sabotage it.” 

Why?

“It wasn’t their program,” he says. “It threatened their program and mission funding.”

In fact, Col. John Norwood, who oversaw the Army’s May 2006 tests of Dragon Skin, has since gone to work for one of Dragon Skin's competitors, Armor Holdings. That company manufactures Interceptor body armor for the Army. The Army says it sees no conflict of interest and in a statement to NBC News, Armor Holdings said Col. Norwood’s hiring was made “in accordance with all relevant and applicable rules and regulations.”

As for Rupert, he was recently fired by the Army, he says, for supporting Dragon Skin. When questioned about Rupert by NBC News, the Army said in a statement:

“Mr. Nevin Rupert was employed by the Army Research Laboratory for more than 33 years as a mechanical engineer in the Weapons & Materials Research Directorate, located at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md. Mr. Nevin left federal service on February 24, 2007. He has a June 2007 appeal before the Merit System Protection Board.”

Web extra video Fathers outraged by military body armor May 17: NBC's Lisa Myers talks with Moe Rimes, Warren Sprinkle and John Grant, fathers of sons serving overseas who feel the Army has not made it possible for their sons to wear the best possible body armor. NBC News Web Extra

For John Grant, Warren Sprinkle and Moe Rimes, who have sons in or returning to Iraq, fielding the best body armor is literally a matter of life and death. 

“When the Army loses a soldier, Marines lose a Marine, that's a number.  But for us back home, that's a member of our family that we will never get back.  It's a hole in our soul that will never seal up,” says Rimes. 

Sprinkle echoes Gen. Downing’s call for a truly independent test of Dragon Skin against the Army’s body armor. 

“If there’s something out there that’s better that’s what they need to have,” he says.

The fathers have joined forces with a controversial advocacy group called Soldiers for the Truth (SFTT), which has for nearly two years been pushing Congress on the Dragon Skin issue.

SFTT is headed by long time Pentagon critic Roger Charles, a former Marine lieutenant colonel.

“Based on our research, Dragon Skin is superior, clearly,” Charles told us. “If there’s ‘super skin’ out there that’s better than Dragon Skin, and the empirical data shows it, we’ll be for it.  We’re for the best available, whatever it might be.”

Gen. Brown says the Army is open to better equipment and that its opposition to Dragon Skin is not about money.

BRIG. GEN. MARK BROWN: Force protection is the highest priority of the US Army in making sure that those young men and women survive and come home.

LISA MYERS: If better body armor were found, would the Army buy it?

BROWN:  Absolutely.  But we would test it through a life-fire protocol.  We would make sure that it passed all of the test criteria, before we give it to our soldiers.

MYERS:  A lot of families we've talked to said they would like to see independent side by side tests of the army's current body armor and Dragon Skin.  Would you support that?

BROWN: Again, Lisa, I would tell American families, their soldiers, and the American public that the soldiers today have the best body armor in the world, bar none.  It's been live fire tested.  It's been proven in combat. We tested Dragon Skin.  Dragon Skin failed miserably.  If Dragon Skin has made a product improvement it might be worthy of another test.”

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