Pay $6000 for Personal Body Armor, Lose $400K If You Die

A site I honestly know little about (i.e. take with a grain of salt) is reporting that soldiers who have bought their own body armor are being told that dying in it "could" cause their death benefits to be denied to survivors. Readers may recall that toward the beginning of the War, there were supply shortages and a number of military families were buying equipment and sending it overseas. Now, this act of charity may be tainted by a short-sighted military command.

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

This is being hotly debated at the moment, but I can't find anything official denying the story. This is one of those cases where some bureaucrat probably made a decision, ignoring the history. But as with many things in life, before you can simply act, you must make sure you understand what has come before. If this order is to be given, then AT THE LEAST families should be reimbursed for the money they spent to buy the alternate armor while supplies were low.