I simply looked at all the factors involved as the program manager and made the decision that I needed to make based on all the information that I had," Patricio said in a May 3 telephone interview. "I did not ignore warnings or advice from my staff. Patricio and other officials with Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, Va., said the second tests show that the vests meet safety standards and do not put Marines at increased risk of injury.
The Corps pulled samples from some of the challenged lots and had them tested at a private, commercial lab. Nor has it said what it will do with the remaining 10,000 that it accepted over the objections of the test labs but which haven't been fielded.ĭespite signed waivers acknowledging that the vests were substandard, the Marine Corps questioned the accuracy of the government test results all along. The Corps has not said what it intends to do with the more than 4,000 other vests the testers urged to be rejected that are now being worn by Marines. Gabriel Patricio, and Point Blank's chief operating officer, Sandra Hatfield signed waivers that allowed the Corps to buy and distribute vests that failed to meet the Corps' minimum standards and specifications.įaced with the imminent publication of this story, the result of an eight-month investigation by Marine Corps Times, the Marine Corps on May 4 issued a Corpswide message recalling 5,277 Interceptor vests from 11 lots that failed government ballistic performance tests - slightly more than half the total vests issued to Marines from questionable lots. Instead, the Marine program manager responsible for fielding the vests, Lt. īut according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with officials at Natick, the Marine Corps and Point Blank, the service rejected that advice.
POINT BLANK VEST FULL
"Anything less than full compliance for a safety item such as the is unacceptable," DCMA wrote in a 2004 memorandum recommending that the Corps reject the vests. He works at the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., and has 18 years of experience with ballistics and armor systems.Ī second government agency, the Defense Contract Management Agency, backed Natick's conclusion and also recommended against the waivers. MacKiewicz is responsible for verifying that each production lot of Marine vests meets protective requirements and other quality standards. "Since these are lifesaving pieces of equipment and are being used in support of the Iraq war, I urge immediate action since this technical office has little confidence in the performance of the items to provide the contracted levels of protection as defined in the performance specification," wrote ballistics expert James MacKiewicz in a memorandum rejecting two lots of vests on July 19, 2004. that failed government tests due to "multiple complete penetrations" of 9mm pistol rounds, failing scores on other ballistic or quality-assurance tests, or a combination of the two. In all, the Marine Corps accepted about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. The Marine Corps issued to nearly 10,000 troops body armor that government experts urged the Corps to reject after tests revealed critical, life-threatening flaws in the vests.
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