[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 109-122]
UPDATE ON THE USE OF COMBAT HELMETS, VEHICLE ARMOR AND BODY ARMOR BY
GROUND FORCES IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM AND OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 15, 2006
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania, Chairman
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia LANE EVANS, Illinois
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama JIM TURNER, Texas
HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, ADAM SMITH, Washington
California MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
JIM RYUN, Kansas JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut STEVE ISRAEL, New York
ED SCHROCK, Virginia JIM COOPER, Tennessee
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
Jesse Tolleson, Professional Staff Member
Andrew Hunter, Professional Staff Member
Benjamin Kohr, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2006
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, June 15, 2006, Update on the Use of Combat Helmets,
Vehicle Armor and Body Armor by Ground Forces in Operation
Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, June 15, 2006.......................................... 47
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 2006
UPDATE ON THE USE OF COMBAT HELMETS, VEHICLE ARMOR AND BODY ARMOR BY
GROUND FORCES IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM AND OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Abercrombie, Hon. Neil, a Representative from Hawaii, Ranking
Member, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.............. 12
Ortiz, Hon. Solomon P., a Representative from Texas.............. 4
Weldon, Hon. Curt, a Representative from Pennsylvania, Chairman,
Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee...................... 1
WITNESSES
Meaders, Dr. Bob, MD, Captain, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy (Retired) 7
Speakes, Maj. Gen. Stephen M., Director, Force Development
Office, Deputy Chief of Staff, G8, U.S. Army, accompanied by
Sgt. First Class Lutz; Maj. Gen. William D. Catto, Commanding
Gen., Marine Corps Systems Command, U.S. Marine Corps; Roger M.
Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, (Littoral and
Mine Warfare); and Brig. Gen. Gary T. McCoy, Director of
Logistics Readiness, Deputy Chief of Staff/Logistics,
Installations and Mission Support, U.S. Air Force.............. 23
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Catto, Maj. Gen. William D................................... 72
McCoy, Brig. Gen. Gary T..................................... 95
Meaders, Dr. Bob............................................. 54
Smith, Roger M............................................... 87
Speakes, Maj. Gen. Stephen M................................. 65
Weldon, Hon. Curt............................................ 51
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
Mr. Israel................................................... 115
Mr. Weldon................................................... 105
UPDATE ON THE USE OF COMBAT HELMETS, VEHICLE ARMOR AND BODY ARMOR BY
GROUND FORCES IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM AND OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, June 15, 2006.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:15 p.m. in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Curt Weldon
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Weldon. The committee will come to order.
This afternoon the Tactical Air and Land Forces
Subcommittee meets in open session to continue our ongoing
review of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring
Freedom force protection issues.
We will receive testimony from two distinguished panels of
witnesses. This marks the third hearing this subcommittee has
held in the past five months regarding force protection
initiatives. The testimony we receive today will provide the
status of combat helmets and body and vehicle armor in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Force protection has already been a top priority of this
committee and will continue to be a top priority as long as our
military is deployed in harm's way. Chairman Hunter and Ranking
Member Skelton have provided outstanding leadership and support
on this issue, and we thank them for that support.
We are finally turning the corner with respect to meeting
the body and vehicle armor requirements for our troops. It has
been a hard-fought effort, and there are still many areas for
improvements in terms of reforming the acquisition system and
maintaining a sense of urgency, but, overall, we have come a
long way. As long as our personnel are threatened, we must do
everything we can to provide them with the best protection that
is available.
Regarding body armor, all military personal serving in Iraq
have been issued, at a minimum, the body armor with enhanced
armor plates to meet the threat. The Army and Marine Corps
continue to direct their efforts toward supplementing body
armor with side torso armor. These side torso armor
requirements must be fulfilled as expeditiously as possible.
The committee understands that the Army is in the process of
qualifying additional sources for side torso armor in order to
meet the requirements sooner. We expect to hear more about this
strategy today.
We understand the services face a difficult task in
balancing the need to protect soldiers and Marines, while at
the same time not adding so much weight as to inhibit their
mobility and effectiveness. Just as adding armor to vehicles
has a downside by creating rollover potential, adding body
armor can reduce personal mobility and increase the danger to
the individual.
Regarding vehicle armor, almost 100 percent of the vehicles
in theater have factory-produced armor, and no vehicle leaves a
secure area without armor.
The industrial base for vehicle armor continues to expand.
We expect to hear from our service witnesses regarding the
status of transitioning from existing armored vehicles to those
with even higher levels of protection.
Despite recent press reports regarding the danger caused by
rollover potential, I am confident that the additional vehicle
armor has saved many lives and continues to help protect
military personnel from daily Improvised Explosive Device (IED)
attacks.
Driver training and rollover mitigation procedures need to
be a priority. We cannot neglect safety, but I am confident
that personnel will choose armor over reducing rollover
potential by reducing vehicle armor. We can expect to learn
more about what is being done to address these concerns.
A new issue before this subcommittee, but one we have been
investigating for several months, has to do with combat
helmets. We understand that there are primarily three helmets
in use by the services, with either padded or sling suspension
systems. We also understand that helmet shells used by
different services, while at slightly different sizes and
weights, provide similar ballistic protection. However, while
available test data is limited, results indicate significant
differences in protecting against nonballistic impact or blast
protection, depending on whether the helmets use padded or
sling suspensions systems, with the padded suspension system
providing approximately twice the protection against blasts.
Apparently, we have thousands of our military personnel who
believe the helmet they are being issued does not provide them
satisfactory protection. Are they misinformed, or is there
substance to their concerns?
The medical officer of the Marine Corps, in a memo of April
of last year, concurred in the official position of the Marine
Corps not authorizing the padded suspension system for the
Marine Corps helmet. He noted that, quote, comfort, fit and
performance, when exposed to cold temperatures and moisture,
make the padded system unsuitable for operational use, end
quote. This is why, after examining this, we have brought the
helmet issue before a formal session of the subcommittee
because of unresolved differences on the issue.
When we asked the Marine Corps why some Marines were
expressing dissatisfaction with their helmets, the official
position was that the Marine Corps helmet provided the required
protection. They also expressed their concerns that there was
an inappropriate relationship between Operation Helmet and the
primary provider of the padded system for combat helmets. In
fact, a senior Marine Corps official accused Operation Helmet
of, quote, ``abetting war profiteering,'' end quote.
This same official indicates that the padded system being
requested by the Marines in Iraq for their helmet, quote,
``does not work. It reduces ballistic protection of the system
and does not address the injuries that are occurring most
frequently in theater. The lightweight helmet, the Marine Corps
helmet, is superior to any other system available,'' end quote.
In addition, with all the trips that our Members have made
to Iraq, we have had no negative feedback regarding helmets
from military personnel. However, with a reported 8,000
warfighters, currently 40 to 50 per day, now having expressed a
need for a different helmet suspension kit than they have been
issued, it is time to get definitive answers. How can so many
warfighters be wrong?
The padded system being requested is used by the Army and
Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The Marine Corps' own
testing indicates that their helmet provides about half the
blast impact protection of the Army helmet. The Marine Corps
says its helmet meets the Marine Corps requirement, but if it
only provides half the blast impact protection of the Army
SOCOM helmet we need to understand why this is acceptable to
Marine Corps leadership and why it insists on using this sling
suspension system.
It is also interesting to note that, while the Marine Corps
insists on using the sling suspension solution, the Navy
Seabees, also a part of the Department of the Navy, after
examining the options available, also selected the Army/SOCOM
padded suspension kit for their helmet.
There are also issues regarding Army management of its
helmet program. We understand that the Army used the same
pattern suspension system for roughly the first 500,000
production versions of its new helmet and then changed its
testing criteria and now uses three different manufactures. We
want to know whether these different padded suspension systems
differ in quality. We expect the service witnesses to help us
understand the rationale for using different helmets and
different suspension systems and the procedures used to
properly test these three systems against ballistic and
nonballistic impacts such as blunt trauma. We also need to know
what the medical data shows regarding the kinds of head
injuries being experienced in theater.
The final issue we want to address relates to recent media
reports quoting service personnel saying they do not have
adequate medical supplies, specifically, specialized bandages
that are used as blood-clotting accelerants. The services claim
that they have adequate supplies and that no unit has indicated
an inability to get the required bandages. We have asked our
witnesses to be prepared to answer questions on this subject
today.
My only comment for now on this is that here again, upon
examination, we find individual service solutions to problems.
With the Army selecting its solution and the Marine Corps using
a different blood-clotting accelerant solution, where is the
jointness and coordination that we hear so much about?
As the threat to our military personnel continues to
evolve, force protection requirements must continue to change
accordingly. We as a committee need to be reassured that all
force protection programs are being accomplished expeditiously,
the services are communicating with one another, and that every
effort is being considered to meet new force protection
requirements. Every day we must be able to confidently say that
we are doing everything possible to provide our warfighters the
best protection they need and deserve.
We look forward to hearing all of our witnesses today on
these important issues, and today we have an interesting panel.
Before I introduce my good friend, Solomon Ortiz, for his
opening statement, one of those individuals who has helped put
together a non-profit foundation, Dr. Meaders, will be our
lead-off witness. His story is an amazing story that I will get
into before he has the opportunity to speak to us.
Joining Dr. Meaders, in the audience today with him--and we
appreciate her taking the time to be here but also for her
financial commitment to the needs of our soldiers with personal
donations well in excess of $100,000, sitting behind Dr.
Meaders is Cher. Cher, thank you for being here.
With that, I would now turn to my distinguished friend and
colleague, Mr. Ortiz, for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weldon can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
STATEMENT OF HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding; and I
just wanted to mention a few concerns that our ranking member,
Neil Abercrombie, had coming into this hearing, which I share
along with my good friend. Mr. Abercrombie was unavoidably
called away.
I am very concerned that the Army and the Marine Corps
disagree about what kind of helmets soldiers and Marines
engaged in ground combat operation should wear. Even more
concerning is that the two services appear to disagree on how
to test helmets and what the standards of protection should be.
Why in the world is there no agreement on this, such a
seemingly simply issue, three years into the war in Iraq?
It is a shock to no one on this committee that the
different services tend to go their separate ways on buying
helicopters, airplanes or other expensive equipment. In some
cases, there are good reasons for the services to have
different equipment. But in the case of a helmet for ground
combat, any argument that different gear is required for the
Army and Marines strains the bounds of credibility. It is
wasteful, and it means that one or the other, either the Army
or the Marines, are receiving inferior force protection
equipment. This practice of this service all doing their own
thing must end. It is wasteful at best and in this case may be
endangering our troops.
How did we get into this kind of bind? I have my
suspicions. One possible reason for this situation is that the
root of all evil is money. All of the military services budgets
are under strain due to the war in Iraq, and the way we are
budgeting for them through supplemental appropriations, no
matter how much some in the Pentagon may deny it, this practice
of not fully funding the cost of the war in the regular budget
produces lots of bad side effects.
Have testing standards been reduced to save money? Are
either the Marine Corps or the Army reluctant to buy a
different helmet because of money? We need to know whether this
is the case.
I am also concerned that if the soldiers and Marines in
combat cannot get the best equipment available, then what hope
is there for the National Guard troops here at home? The
National Guard already has just 30 percent of its required
equipment, and I imagine helmets aren't its top priority if it
is short of trucks and radios.
I am confident this problem will be fixed. When it comes to
providing protective gears to our troops, this committee has
consistently asked just one question, how much money do you
need? This committee would provide whatever it takes to protect
our troops, but you, the services, must tell us honestly what
they need.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. I thank my friend and colleague.
As I mentioned, we have two panels here today. The first
witness we have is the founder of the charitable organization
Operation-Helmet.org, Dr. Bob Meaders, who is also a retired
Navy captain. His son is a constituent of mine who first
brought this to my attention approximately a month and a half,
two months ago. How and why he did this is an interesting story
that I will let him tell. It is an amazing story, a family-
formed foundation, taking none of the proceeds for any of the
administrative costs, using all the money because of a story
brought to him by his grandson, who, by the way, is still
serving in theater on this very day.
His organization consists of him and his son Mark, who is
also retired Air Force, and his wife, who is either active duty
or retired Air Force Reserve, uses donations to purchase and
send padded helmet suspension systems to warfighters that make
requests of them.
It makes no sense to me that our military personnel have to
rely on a charitable organization to get the equipment they
seem to think they need because their service is not providing
it for them. We take our oversight responsibility very
seriously. We need to get the facts. If we are not providing
the right gear to our military personnel, we need to fix the
problem. If our troops are asking in great numbers, as appears
to be the case--and I understand there have been 8,000 inserts
sent over from this foundation which are being used by our
troops--then why don't we issue this to them?
Dr. Meaders is accompanied here today by his wife, LaVera,
his son, Mark Meaders, and his son's wife, Carla Jean; and I
want to thank them all. They are dedicated and patriotic
Americans.
I talked to Dr. Meaders at length; and he said,
Congressman, I want to get out of this business. I want to go
play golf again. But we appreciate your leadership.
We also want to thank Cher for coming. How did Cher get
here? She went on C-SPAN and called in as a citizen when Dr.
Meaders was on and said, I want to contribute; I am a part of
this. And my understanding is that she has personally
contributed over $300,000 to Operation Helmet, which has
provided thousands of inserts for our troops in theater.
Now let me say one additional thing about this hearing. It
is especially poignant today because Sonny Bono and his wife
Mary had been members of this committee. I met Sonny when he
first came. He was a member of our full committee and my
subcommittee. We were good friends. In fact, the weekend before
he was killed in a tragic accident he was coming to my
congressional district for an event for me.
As you all know, Sonny died from a traumatic head injury.
Sonny's concern on this committee, as was Mary's when she
served on this committee--and Mary is here with us today, an
outstanding member of this body--was focused on the protection
of our troops. They spent their hours here working tirelessly
to make sure back then that we had proper protection.
I, with my colleagues here, attended the tragic--the
funeral of Sonny Bono and the tragedy that we had heard when we
got the news that Sonny had died. Cher gave the eulogy there.
Obviously, I had never met Cher, but I sat in that church and I
listened to that eulogy and can tell you to this day it is the
perhaps the most emotional speech I have ever heard. It wasn't
a written speech. In fact, she said that when she got up there.
I can't use my notes. It was from her heart. She talked about
the Sonny Bono that she knew.
So it really is a special irony and a really great tribute
that Cher would return to this hearing room with Mary Bono
sitting here at the dais who served on this committee and with
the memory of Sonny Bono in all of our hearts and the great
work that he did on behalf for the support of our troops.
And Mary is joined by Steve Buyer. Steve is the chairman of
our Veterans Affairs Committee. Steve has served on this
committee, Steve has served in theater, and still is a
reservist. Steve understands the needs of our military and the
results of our military when they become veterans better than
any other Member of this institution. So it is an extreme honor
to have the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee and
former member of this committee come today to show you, Dr.
Meaders, how seriously he takes this issue. Steve has been
doing significant work on the helmet issue, and he will have
some questions for you.
We are asking special approval today to have the chairman
of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee sit as a full member of
this committee, with Mary Bono and other members, so that they
can join in the questioning.
So this is what we told you we would do a month ago. We do
work quickly, government does respond, and we want you to know
our support for the warfighters is unwavering. There are no
political consequences here. We are going to do the right
thing, and we will put whatever amount of money is necessary.
That is the role that Democrats and Republicans on this
committee and this Congress have consistently taken.
Our second panel today includes witnesses representing the
military services, and we have distinguished leaders of our
military.
From the Army, Major General Stephen Speakes, Director for
Force Development, Army G8.
Marine Corps General William Catto, Marine Corps Systems
Command. General Catto, welcome back.
Representing the Navy, Roger Smith, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, Littoral and Mine Warfare. Roger,
welcome back in your new capacity. I'm not promising to go easy
on you, but we know that you can handle it.
Representing the Air Force, Major General select Gary
McCoy, Director of Logistics Readiness, Office of the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Logistics.
We thank all of you for joining us. We look forward to your
testimony.
We would like to proceed with the first panel's testimony,
but, without objection, I would say that all of your written
statements will be included in the record, including yours, Dr.
Meaders. We ask that you summarize whatever comments you want
to make, and then we will allow members to ask questions, and
we will operate under the 5-minute rule.
With that, we will turn the floor over to you, Dr. Meaders,
for whatever statement you would like to make. And again,
welcome. Thank you for being here, but, more importantly, thank
you for your service to the country and thank you for, in your
retired years, coming back and responding to your grandson's
request for help. I would ask you to go into that story for us
here today so that all of us can share in the outstanding
American story that you represent. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DR. BOB MEADERS, MD, CAPTAIN, MEDICAL CORPS, U.S.
NAVY (RETIRED)
Dr. Meaders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honored Members of
Congress and all the military who are here. You are needed,
wanted and loved by the American people; and we offer you all
the support that we can.
This whole thing started out as a single-event mission. My
grandson, who is now a Marine Sergeant, at the time was a young
Lance Corporal in training at Twentynine Palms, California, for
convoy duty. A gunnery sergeant just back from Iraq gathered
the troops around and said, look at my helmet, it has got an
upgrade to it, and if you are smart you will get one for
yourself, it might save your life like mine.
My grandson called me up and said please check this out and
see if this is for real or not. So I went to my various old
friends in the Navy and in the Army Air and Medical Research
Lab and several civilian groups doing blast research and they
said, yes, this is good. As a matter of fact, when we were
deployed over there we had these in our helmets.
At the time, we were talking about the Personal Armor
System, Ground Troops (PASGT) helmet, which was this particular
helmet, the problem of which is the nylon strap that separates
your head from the helmet, there is nothing between the helmet
and your head except air and that piece of nylon. This helmet
is great at deflecting bullets, but with this between your head
and the helmet, when a blast force strikes this helmet, or
large fragments from the blast force, or you are getting
tumbled down the road or inside your vehicle, this helmet
slides over, contacts the skull in an area of about the size of
a ball peen hammer and will cause skull fractures, intercranial
hemorrhages of various sizes, brain bruising, and can lead to
long-term disability or death.
So without further ado, we purchased some of the kits that
turned that helmet into what looks like a very good National
Football League (NFL) helmet.
These helmet kits that we purchased are filled with shock-
absorbing pads that are Velcroed to the surface. And these pads
are very sophisticated; these are not just your ordinary
kitchen sponge. They are a combination of slow and rapid crush
foam. The rapid crush foam allows the helmet to deflect
momentarily when struck by a missile; the slow crush foam
absorbs the energy and spreads it out over a larger area of the
head. So instead of getting hit by a hammer you are getting
shoved by the palm of your hand. It makes a tremendous
difference in the survivability of a blast evolution.
So we sent my grandson a few kits, enough for his rifle
team, and they put them on and wore them for a couple of days'
training. He called back and said these are wonderful, but we
feel like we can't wear these unless we can get them for our
whole company. And we swallowed hard and we said, how many of
those do we have to come up with? And he said a hundred. So we
went around and knocked on doors and gathered up the money and
sent them a hundred by the time they got in country. And that
was our only mission at that time.
Then in country the other troops saw them being able to run
across the sand without having to hold their helmet in one hand
and their weapon in the other. When they were in prone firing
position, they didn't have to stop and slap the helmet back
when the another guy behind the berm was standing there in a
stationary position. When they wore night vision goggles, they
didn't have to hold them up to keep their eyes uncovered. And,
strangely enough, they found them sleeping with using these
helmets as a pillow, using the internal padding.
So we began getting requests from other units nearby. And
as word spread from mouth to mouth, obviously, it was going to
be a much larger job. So a very generous lawyer there in Texas
said, let's just set you up as a corporation, and then we will
do a 501(c)(3) and people's donations can be tax deductible,
and off we want.
So from an initial standpoint of a hundred, as of today we
are--like I said, about 8,700 have gone over to the troops,
which is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed. But I
hope it makes some difference. And if we just all get together
and save one life, then we have done a good thing.
The Army--some time back I got a call from the Army Chief
of Staff's Office; and they said, Dr. Bob, we are purchasing
helmets that have these pads from the factory installed. You
don't have to do that anymore. So that left me with just the
Marines who were wearing this old-style helmet, with the Navy
Seabees who were beginning to evolve into a new duty of running
convoys, and Air Force guys.
The Army was spread too thin, so they said you drive your
own trucks and get your gear from point A to point B, and that
exposed them to the IEDs, suicide attacks by vehicles.
Sometimes when the over-armored vehicles start rolling over,
you are rattled around like a BB in a tin can, and your head
slams up against the side of the vehicle. Once again, helmets
go in contact and sometimes fatal results--and even nonfatal
results. If you get hit often enough like that, with a sharp
blow rather than a push, you develop chronic traumatic brain
injury with neurocognitive problems later in life where you
can't remember--well, I can't now sometimes--your wedding date
or your home address or what you are doing when or the
relationship between things--it is called executive functions--
start going by the board.
So we were very fortunate to have the general public, the
Marine families especially, pitch in and begin helping. And
word spread generally throughout the country by means of
television, radio, newspaper articles, and great citizens like
Cher who stepped forward and said, how can I help? It is not
about me. It is about what can we do for the troops and what
effect can we have.
The only thing that really changed was that when the new
Marine helmet came out that is similar in size and shape to
this one, except it has much more bullet resistance, it has 30
percent more bullet resistance, so it is a darn good helmet.
But the suspension system in this one, which likewise is
suspended in such a fashion that in a blast evolution the head
can rock back and forth and allow the helmet to contact it and
your head becomes a clanger in a Kevlar bell and it will do
significant injury to you.
So we thought we would be able to step down from that when
the new helmet came out, but we looked at that and said maybe
we better do some studies. So we did some studies in private
labs and found that the blast resistance was not much better
than the old helmet, while the bullet resistance was excellent.
So we set off to begin trying to convert a really good helmet
into a great helmet by just inserting the pads. And since then
the program continues the pace, and folks keep donating money,
and we keep sending the kits. And that is where we are today,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Dr. Meaders.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Meaders can be found in the
Appendix on page 54.]
Mr. Weldon. I am going to allow us to operate under the
five-minute rule, including the chairman and ranking member, to
give everyone a chance to ask questions. So I would ask that
the five-minute light be put on.
And just for the purpose of your first appearance before
Congress, the empty seats don't indicate a lack of interest.
This is a subcommittee of the full committee. So on the
subcommittee you don't have all the members, and so other
members are at other hearings. There is a markup across the
hall. Plus we are debating on the House floor, and a lot of the
members are there. So I don't want you to think that somehow
the empty chairs are an indication of a lack of interest. That
is not the case. In fact, we have a great representation of
members from both parties today, which indicates a strong
interest in this issue.
Dr. Meaders, you were a Vietnam veteran, correct?
Dr. Meaders. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weldon. And you also were a medical professional in the
military, correct?
Dr. Meaders. Yes. I was a Navy doctor.
Mr. Weldon. And did you not focus on head injuries and
injuries with the eyes and all? Wasn't that your specialty?
Dr. Meaders. Well, as an ophthalmologist and a flight
surgeon, I saw a lot and would help with facial reconstructions
in people who had significant facial and head injuries.
Mr. Weldon. So your expertise in the military was, in fact,
in the medical area where you dealt with these kind of head
injuries. It wasn't something that you did not know anything
about. You knew something about this.
Dr. Meaders. Yes. I don't want to put myself across as a
brain injury specialist, because I am not, but on a practical
level we saw them and treated them, and we saw the devastating
effects of them. And seeing one is enough to last you a
lifetime; and if there is a way that subsequently we can do
something to prevent it in the first place, then good.
Mr. Weldon. As I mentioned in the opening statement--and I
want to repeat this for my colleagues and for the public--all
the money you raised for this foundation you put out the back
door to buy the inserts, is that correct?
Dr. Meaders. Yes, sir. We don't take a dime or salary or
expenses that way. When we travel up here, it is on our own
dime. And my son Mark does the same thing. He goes around and
talks to people.
You know, money doesn't do any good in a bank or in your
wallet or stuffed somewhere where it doesn't protect you, but
the helmet kits save lives.
Mr. Weldon. And you don't have any vested ties to any
vendor, do you?
Dr. Meaders. Well, Oregon Arrow sent me a T-shirt and a
ballpoint pen and a cup for my birthday, but, aside from that,
no.
Mr. Weldon. And it was pretty outrageous to me to hear that
someone would lay out the premise that somehow the purpose of
you doing this was somehow being tied to a vendor. You are
probably as disgusted as I am that someone would even suggest
that.
Dr. Meaders. Yes. We have purchased from several vendors,
and we whittled it down to the one basically that I would want
on my head if I were a front-line combat troop and I would want
on my grandson's head.
Mr. Weldon. And, correct me, weren't these vendors also
approved by the military?
Dr. Meaders. Yes. Oregon Arrow was authorized by the
Marines for this particular helmet, for the PASGT helmet,
authorized but not funded I think was the way it was put.
As far as the new Marine lightweight helmet, there has been
disagreement about its use, so that is why we undertook some of
the studies to make sure that if we replaced this with the pads
that, number one, it would do no harm and, number two, that it
would do some good. And that good we hope is decreasing
injuries from blast evolutions in which the blast is survivable
and there is no fragment or bullet penetration of the brain and
we can diminish the concussive injuries to the head.
Mr. Weldon. How much have you raised in total from
donations from the public?
Dr. Meaders. I would say somewhere around $800,000 or so. I
don't keep a lot of dollar numbers in there, although we have
got a CPA that does that. We figure there are a number of
troops that got their head in a better bucket.
Mr. Weldon. And we know that you are not here to do this,
but you might want to acknowledge your largest donor to that
fund.
Dr. Meaders. Yes, exactly. Cher has been a major
contributor and just a wonderful supporter. Like I said, she
came to me and said, this is not about me; I would love to come
up there and hold your hand while you are in front of the
committee. And I said, that is great; I would love it. She has
been a great press relations (PR) person and is now our
celebrity spokesperson to get the attention of people. Because
so many say, if I had known about this, I would have been a
donor a long time ago.
Mr. Weldon. Is it true that you and she are going to do a
gig together?
Dr. Meaders. I refuse to answer on the grounds that it
might get my head knocked around.
Mr. Weldon. One final question. Can you summarize some of
the e-mails you have received from military personnel
requesting the kits and the feedback from those that use the
kits? If you could just summarize that for us.
Dr. Meaders. Yes, sir. We have had just e-mail after e-mail
from the troops that know they want it and have heard about
them, anecdotal things about how they perceive the benefits
from them.
Just recently we got, as a matter of fact, a telephone call
the day before yesterday from a young Corporal who is in the
Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital recovering from shrapnel wounds to
his neck and shoulders. He called me up and said, Doc, can I
have a new helmet insert? And I said, well, sure, what happened
to your old one? And he said, when the rocket hit the wall
behind me and exploded, it shredded my helmet completely and
filled my shoulders and neck with shrapnel. They are taking
care of that. But the good news is it didn't hurt my head at
all, it just destroyed my helmet, and the pads probably saved
my life.
We hear that type of story over and over, people ejected
from the upgun on the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled
Vehicle (HMMWV), being blown out of a truck, tumbling down the
road, slapping heads and heels, and being able to get up and
get back and help the rest of the guys out of a burning vehicle
and/or mount a perimeter defense for whatever is going to
follow.
So, anecdotally, we say, yeah, it works. And it is a hard
thing to prove, I guess. If you stood up 10 guys in a row and
hit each one a little bit harder until one of them died, then
you could say this is the level of protection that we need,
but--so we have to go on information from the Brain Injury
Association, who is here with us today, from the National
Football League that mount G force meters in their helmets and
show how much people get whacked in the head and soccer players
that mount them in their headbands.
So there is pretty good information about what levels of
impact forces will result in headache, loss of consciousness,
contusion and, ultimately, fatal injuries.
Mr. Weldon. Doctor, you and your family are the outstanding
example of what Americans are all about; and we appreciate your
commitment to the country and the work that you have done
through the foundation.
With that, I will turn to my good friend and colleague for
his time. He is the ranking member on this committee and a good
friend of mine from the State of Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.
STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
HAWAII, RANKING MEMBER, TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Abercrombie. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
I want to thank Representative Ortiz for picking up for me
here because I was not able to be here in time. Doctor, that
was not a slight to you, I assure you. It was a logistical
problem I had getting here.
Some of this you have, I think, answered, but I want to get
a little bit more specificity. Because I can assure you the
chairman will put specific numbers and policies into effect,
should he move forward in this area, and we need to make sure
that we have our facts correct.
I have read through all the testimony, but I am still not
quite sure from the end of it and I would like your opinion--or
your judgment--why are the Army and Marines using different
helmet systems? I am still not clear after all of the reading
in here.
Dr. Meaders. Well, it is kind of beyond my pay grade to
make those decisions for the Marines.
Mr. Abercrombie. Has someone discussed it with you? Could
you give an observation then? If you can't, that is all right.
Dr. Meaders. The people that discuss it with me are the
troops out in the field. They say, we have a great helmet for
bullet protection, and that is what we thought we were going to
be facing, and the evolution of IEDs, suicide vehicles and
vehicle rollovers that slam us around inside are something for
which we weren't prepared. And we would like to take care of
that, so that is what we do.
Mr. Abercrombie. So you haven't gone into the question of
why there may be a difference in----
Dr. Meaders. No, sir.
Mr. Abercrombie. Okay. You mentioned that you hear this
quite a bit. Do you actually have figures on how many requests
you have had for the padded helmet liners? Are you able to keep
statistics, or is your organization not quite up to----
Dr. Meaders. This is three weeks worth of requests right
here from the troops out in the field.
Mr. Abercrombie. So you are keeping records, in effect, of
the requests.
Dr. Meaders. I am sorry?
Mr. Abercrombie. So you are keeping records, in effect, of
the requests?
Dr. Meaders. Yes. We keep every single e-mail that comes
in. Every dollar that comes in, we get the name, address of the
person. And some of them, donations will come in and say this
is in memory of Colonel X, Y or Z.
Mr. Abercrombie. So if a staff works with you, it will be
more than just anecdotal or verbal recollection. You have some
paper trail, so to speak.
Dr. Meaders. Yes, we do.
Mr. Abercrombie. Thank you.
Do you have--well, I would really be asking the same
question over again of why we are using different systems, and
we will maybe get to that in the second panel.
I just wanted to indicate, with the Chairman's reference to
what you term celebrity spokeswomen--spokeswoman in this
particular instance--I was amused to hear a conversation this
week that had Mr. Redford, Robert Redford, on it. He was asked
the same question about what makes it that someone who is--why
should we pay attention because someone has a celebrity status
of some kind? Why should we pay attention then? He said, I
thought that was handled, at least for the Republican side of
the aisle, when Ronald Reagan became President.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will turn it back to you.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie, for your great work
and your leadership on this committee.
I will turn to the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Dr. Meaders, thank you very much for your presence
here today and for your testimony and for the great work you
are doing for the young men and women.
I am stunned, stunned that our military doesn't have the
foresight to see the need for an insert like this and has not
seen the need for an insert like this over the years. We have
looked at or have watched the evolution of the National
Football League and their helmet systems over the years. They
have been out front, leading the way. You would think that some
of the knowledge base, the institutional knowledge base of
helmet design and protection of the head would have been
transferred from those professional institutions to our
military.
My question would be, are any of the efforts, the work that
you produce, protected either by patents or some type of
proprietary restrictions?
Dr. Meaders. No, sir. Everything we do is aboveboard----
Mr. Gibbons. So there is absolutely no excuse for any
company, any organization to say we couldn't do this because it
was patented.
Dr. Meaders. Yes.
Mr. Gibbons. You know, cost versus performance has always
been the bottom line of what I have seen in the military. But
in this case the cost is the ultimate brain injury, which is
far more expensive than the cost of an insert--if it is more
expensive--than the sling pad construction helmet. So do you
have a difference in the cost between what is sling pad or a
pad sling--whatever that system is for suspension--sling
suspension versus pad suspension would be for a helmet?
Dr. Meaders. Well, the pad system that upgrades the new
Marine helmet is 71 bucks, and that replaces what is in there.
So I don't know what that costs if you were to say to the
factory don't put that in but put this in.
For the helmet that the Air Force convoy and the Marine
Seabees and some of the coastal patrol boats are using, which
is the old helmet, it needs more work to be upgraded to a very
safe helmet, so that is about 99 bucks.
But, once again, I don't know what it would be if you got
it directly from the factory without that originally so you
don't have to replace anything.
Mr. Gibbons. So in order to incorporate your pad protection
or your pad suspension it would require, for an original helmet
without the new upgraded sling suspension, about a hundred
dollars.
Dr. Meaders. Yes, sir. Now, understand, we don't
manufacture anything. All we do is purchase them and send them.
Mr. Gibbons. Okay.
Mr. Weldon. Would the gentleman yield on one point?
Mr. Gibbons. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. Weldon. You might want to, as a follow-up to Mr.
Gibbon's comment on the setasides, I think you had indicated to
staff that that has been a problem in the past, where there are
requirements for setasides in producing these pads for certain
groups.
Dr. Meaders. I am sorry, would you----
Mr. Weldon. The setasides. I think staff has told us that
you discussed with us the problems that have occurred when
there are forced purchases through certain groups that might
lead to an inferior capability.
Dr. Meaders. Well, as I understand it, there is what is
called a Javits, Wagner, O'Day Program (JWOD), where you have
to purchase certain materials manufactured by the National
Institutes for the Blind and Severely Visually Handicapped, and
sometimes that is hard to do with a complicated manufacturing
process. I am sure that they could always be included in the
process. Somewhere along the line they will help them get the
funding they need for the wonderful work that they do.
Mr. Gibbons. Have any of the other services or even the
leadership of the Department of Defense (DOD) come to you and
talked to you about this system, about incorporating the
results of your effort and your information into their new
purchases of helmets?
Dr. Meaders. No, sir. I can't say that I have been
approached like that. I would love for them to take it over so
I could quit and go play golf.
Mr. Gibbons. Well, that is what is surprising, obviously,
it is working. The word of mouth that is out there in our
military among the troops is very effective in terms of
awareness today of the improvement in their helmet by what you
have done or what you have provided them. And it stuns me again
that the industry that is responsible, the Department of
Defense, which is responsible for that industry, and the
soldiers haven't taken the opportunity to improve the helmets
they have out there.
To me, I think there is a clear choice here. We either
protect the lives of our soldiers, or we don't send them. And
if we have the ability to protect them, we ought to do
everything that is possible to do that.
Again, I want to thank you for what you have done. You have
certainly enlightened our committee, and we are very proud that
you took the time and the effort out of your years of hard work
and dedication to this country to do one more thing for our
troops. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman.
The distinguished gentleman from New York is recognized,
Mr. Israel.
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Doctor, thank you so much for your service and your
sacrifice; and let me also thank Cher for the critical work
that she is doing and for lending her celebrity status to this
effort.
You know, there is a saying that politics is show business
for ugly people; and this panel is probably graphic testimony
of that. But Cher's presence here is extremely important--who
said speak for yourself? Cher's presence is very important
because it does help draw attention to this critical issue. I
would imagine, as has been stated before, that if we were
having a hearing on this issue without the presence of a
celebrity we would not have the number of photographers that
join us today.
There is lots of talk about sacrifice in the Global War on
Terror, Doctor, as you know. People say that America is
fighting a war on Iraq. America is not fighting a war in Iraq.
130,000 Americans are fighting the war on Iraq. The rest of us
are watching it on television.
We are going to pass a resolution at some point this
evening that honors our troops. But, somehow, when it comes
time to actually sign the check and make sure they get what
they need, we fall short or it is too late. So this is
essentially a matter of priorities. If we can find $2 billion
in tax cuts for the richest oil company executives on earth, we
should be able to find the money so that everybody in theater
gets that equipment so that you don't have to spend your time
and your dime raising money for that.
Mr. Chairman, I have some specific questions about another
force protection issue, and that is coagulants, for the second
panel.So I will yield back my time and save my time for the
second panel.
Thank you. And thank you again, doctor.
Mr. Weldon. I would thank the gentleman.
I would just note for the record that this committee with
Democrat and Republican support has consistently put more money
in than even Democrat or Republican Administrations have
requested consistently to make sure that our troops are
protected. I don't think we have ever had a question where
individual personal protection was not funded by this
committee, and I take great pride in both Democrat and
Republicans leading that effort.
With that, we will go to our distinguished gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Conaway.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, Dr. Meaders,
thank you for being here today and for your work.
I am going to yield to my good colleague and friend, Steve
Buyer, from the Veterans Affairs Committee.
Mr. Buyer. Thank you to my colleagues for allowing me to be
here today.
Mr. Weldon. Excuse me one minute, Steve. I have to get--
after consultation with the minority, I now ask unanimous
consent that Mr. Buyer, Chairman of the Veterans Affairs
Committee, be allowed to speak in today's subcommittee hearing
and be authorized to question the witnesses.
Mr. Buyer would be recognized at this point at the
conclusion, but obviously he has been yielded to, so that is
fine. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
Mr. Buyer. Thank you very much.
Those of us who serve on the Veterans Affairs Committee--
and Mr. Simmons was on the committee for a while--we are
dealing with the consequences of war. So when we started
dealing with many of the blast injuries, we then--Congress
created four polytrauma centers. There is one in Minneapolis,
Richmond, Tampa and Palo Alto; and now we have gone into second
tiers. So we are taking care of the men and women who are
suffering from these injuries, and the helmet has come to be an
issue. And what I don't know, sir, is whether the apparatus
which you are describing is going to be the solution.
Some of the results that we are dealing with are,
obviously, some of the blindness. We are dealing with hearing
loss and traumatic brain injuries. But we also have caused
this--it wasn't just the helmet in and of itself. Because when
we have done everything we can to purchase body armor--before
when there was a blast, part of the torso would absorb a
percentage of the blast. Now when we put on the body armor,
what is exposed are the extremities. When the blast hits the
chest, a percentage of it goes up into the face. So we then
deal with the maxiofacial, the nasal, the eyes, the ears. So
when we have a concussion, we also have the reconcussion.
So this helmet, while the force goes up into the helmet
that is strapped on, there is no release of the energy. So the
energy goes up, it settles back. And where does it settle back
is the pressure upon the brain.
Now I am not a neurosurgeon, and I know you aren't either.
So what we are desiring--first of all, let me compliment you in
trying to seek a solution, because that is what we are going to
do; and, Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for this hearing in a
bipartisan basis for you to proceed on this issue. We are going
to do the same thing on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and it
is whether or not we are going to dedicate research dollars to
do just that.
What I don't want to do is I don't want to have redundancy.
And you have got research dollars, we have got research
dollars, and somehow we need to come together on how we provide
the research to make sure that the helmet is right. Because the
key is, how do we manufacture a helmet that does not compromise
the integrity of its purpose, yet has some form of ventilation
system that allows the energy to disperse? And therein lies our
challenge. And I am sure that you have had to examine part of
what I have discussed, correct?
Dr. Meaders. Yes, sir.
If you would like a response, I have spoken to some
demining companies in France and Israel and some in the
Netherlands that do these commercially, and they quit wearing
helmets. Instead, they wear a blast-deflecting shield.
But I posed the question to them: If you compare the scoop
effect of a hollow helmet with nothing but air between your
head and the shell versus the scoop effect of a helmet in which
probably 80 percent of the air is now occupied by these pads,
if you will, what effect does that have on the, as you say, the
impact and the reimpact? And they said, you know, we have never
thought about that. We always just used the old-style helmet,
but we are going to look into it.
So at this point in time, no one really has the answer yet.
Mr. Buyer. I don't want to be as hard on DOD as some may,
because we here in Congress have also caused part of that
problem. It is the demand of the American people to do
everything we can to do force protection. So we here in
Congress do what we can, yet we are also causing new types of
injuries in furtherance thereof. So as we do this, this cause
and effect, we have to follow it.
Now DOD also needs to be highly responsive to that. And Mr.
Simmons and I were just talking about how easy it is for other
countries. We have got this sophisticated acquisitions system.
You can go out and you can make immediate change and give it to
the force faster than what DOD can through acquisition. They
can't buy them until it is researched to death. So therein lies
our challenge.
I want to work with the Armed Services Committee on this. I
appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues; and thank you, sir,
for your leadership.
Dr. Meaders. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Weldon. The gentleman from Texas still has time.
Mr. Conaway. I yield back the time. I just want to once
again thank Dr. Meaders for your hard work in this effort for
our troops, and Steve's comments. I yield back.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the Chairman for being here.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Brady, is recognized.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
the doctor and his family for bringing this issue to light, to
this committee. It is almost embarrassing that we didn't think
of it ourselves, but we tend--from time to time we need to be
prodded along and bring issues to us.
You know, war changes. When we first went into this war on
the ground, we thought that we would be getting shot at. And
the helmet, as you said, is a great protective piece of
equipment, but now we are getting blown around and our brains
and our head are getting banged around, and what you have now
hopefully puts our men and women a lot safer.
I would like to thank Cher, also, because of the celebrity
status, as my colleagues said, that we do need, and it brings a
whole lot more light to an issue that needs to have that
happen. I thank her for her concern for the men and women that
are in harm's way.
As we said, we are sitting here in air conditioning and
pretty safe. We walk through metal detectors and dogs go around
our cars and we are pretty safe. But our men and women aren't,
and we need to do our job to make sure that they are safe. So I
thank you for that. I think you are a great patriot.
We have got a great bipartisan committee. I am really glad
to know we have two bipartisan committees, with our chairman of
Veterans Committee telling us that he has some research dollars
to put in. We have a great chairman that isalways out there
fighting for our men and women, and we have some money to put
in. Hopefully, by doing that and having this hearing, we can
get you back on the golf course, Doctor. You deserve it. So
thank you very much for being here.
Dr. Meaders. Thank you, sir. The response across America
has been--regardless of how we feel about the war, we love,
respect and want to support our troops; and that is the
wonderful thing that has brought this all together.
Mr. Weldon. First of all, I want to thank the gentleman for
his questions. I just note for the record he is a labor leader
from Philadelphia, so if anyone knows about the need to protect
the head from construction injuries, our good friend from
Pennsylvania is that person. He is an outstanding member of
this committee as well, and I thank him for his line of
questions.
With that, I will turn to the distinguished gentleman from
Carolina and the number one leader, Walter Jones, on all the
veterans' issues for us. Walter, you are recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
I guess when I see Cher--I was elected in 1995 with that
class of Republicans. About 70 of us came here storming. And
the first time we had an Armed Services meeting here, we were
here late at night, and I tell you, your husband--former
husband, I guess, at that time--he kept us up all night, kept
us awake. He was just a great guy, and we will always remember
him as long as we have life, that I can promise you.
Dr. Meaders, I want to say thank you. I have Camp Lejeune
Marine base in the district that I represent, the 3rd District
of North Carolina, and I am like everyone else, I guess. You
know, the Department of Defense has a tough job whether we are
at war or peacetime, but especially at wartime, to making sure
that the troops get what they need to protect themselves. But
how many--you said you raised roughly $800,000--I am sorry, I
was in and out----
Dr. Meaders. Yes.
Mr. Jones [continuing]. And you had how many requests for
helmets from those who are serving?
Dr. Meaders. I am sorry? I am not sure I understood the
last part of your question, but we manage a waiting list of
about 10 to 1,200 troops all the time. And when someone like
Cher steps forward and says here, I am going to help you wipe
that out, the more kits we send out, the more troops learn
about them, and the more requests we get. So it is a never-
ending process with the turnover of troops and the spread of
the word.
Mr. Jones. Since you started this effort--and again,
everyone that has helped you, including Cher, God bless you
all--but have you been contacted by the Department of Defense
or by the Marine Corps? I mean, has there been some
communications to you that, you know, Doctor, we understand
that you are getting X number of requests from the battle
front? Did you get any inquiries from the Marine Corps, the
Department of Defense as to this effort and what kind of
information you were getting from the troops?
Dr. Meaders. No, sir, we have not had any direct
communications saying, you know, how many are out there and why
are they asking. That has not been our focus. Our focus is just
to put the heads in a safer helmet.
Mr. Jones. Well, I am not being critical because--God bless
them all, but I will tell you that I heard about your effort
on--I am a conservative Republican, but from time to time I
listen to Air America, and I really think I have gotten to be a
fan of Randi Rhodes--I don't agree with her on everything, but
I listen to her quite frequently. But that is when I first
heard about it.
I guess we can find out with the next panel, but I would
think, with such a national effort and a national concern about
our troops having the proper helmet liner, you would think
someone from DOD would have made an inquiry, just out of
curiosity if nothing else.
I am not being critical, but I again just want to say to
the chairman and the ranking member that I am pleased that we
are having this hearing, that we are having an opportunity
really to say thank you to you and others for your patriotism
to this great Nation and to help our men and women in uniform
to be better protected. So I look forward to hearing from the
next panel.
I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the distinguished gentleman.
Mr. Bartlett is recognized.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, as I sat here listening to this testimony, I
asked myself, I wonder how many other places in the world this
might happen.
You know, this is really a great country, and I think that
this happened in our country--and I doubt that it could happen
anywhere else--because of the enormous respect that we have for
the rights of the individual. It was the primary reason that
our Founding Fathers came to this country, and they embedded in
our Constitution their conviction that the rights of the
individual is preeminent to all other rights. There is no other
constitution, no other Bill of Rights in the world that gives
such rights to the people, and I think that that created a
climate in which this kind of individual activity can go on.
I want to commend you, Doctor, for doing this. I don't
think there is anywhere else in the world where people feel
such a personal responsibility that would induce somebody like
Cher to step forward to give not just her money but her
enormous influence to this.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the doctor for doing
this; and I just believe that the climate that permitted this,
the rights of the individual--you know, I am a little more
concerned about the threats to those rights than I am about the
threats of al Qaeda; and I think when we fight this war we need
to be very, very careful that we don't permit our zeal to catch
terrorists to erode these incredible rights of the individual
that are so important. I don't think we would be sitting here
today, sir, having this testimony except for our great
Constitution and our great Bill of Rights that establishes this
climate where this kind of thing can take place.
Thank you for this hearing; and thank you, Doctor and Cher,
for your contribution to what makes America great.
Dr. Meaders. Thank you, sir. The thanks go to all the
military people, past, present and future, who are out there
making it possible for us to do this and the American people
that gather together to say how can we help.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman for his questions.
I will just acknowledge, Doctor, he is also a Ph.D. He is a
physiologist from Johns Hopkins University; and Congressman
Bartlett has 20 patents to his credit, including patents
dealing with breathing systems. So he is very much concerned
with issues like the ones that we are talking about and is an
outstanding expert.
After consultation with the minority, I now ask unanimous
consent that Mr. Simmons, as a member of the House Armed
Services, is going to be authorized to question panel members
at today's hearing.
If there are no objections, I will now recognize Mr.
Simmons for fiveminutes.
Mr. Simmons. I thank the chairman for holding this terrific
hearing, and I thank the members for the courtesy to allow me
to make a few comments and ask a question.
Like you, doctor, I am a Vietnam veteran; and I say welcome
home to you. I really appreciate the efforts that you have
made.
A couple of years ago, I went to Iraq and I discovered
that, with the changing combat conditions, our HMMWVs were
improperly armored. And I took it upon myself, with the
assistance of members of this committee, including Chairman
Weldon, to go out into industry to see what was being done to
provide uparmor for our troops as well as body armor. What I
discovered was there was a substantial amount of creativity out
there, but the red tape and the bureaucracy that we encountered
was very substantial. Clearly, the costs of uparmored HMMWVs
and even of body armor substantially exceed the costs of the
inserts for helmets, and so this subcommittee and the full
committee had to reauthorize and we had to reappropriate
dollars for that purpose.
It took about 2 years. But what I learned from that
experience was that we have the very best fighting men and
women in the world in our Armed Services. It is an all-
volunteer force, and they are highly motivated.
But sometimes the bureaucracy and the red tape prevents the
system from being nimble and flexible. Nimble and flexible. And
even though private individuals and the members of the free
market system wish to participate, it is hard to move forward.
And I would just congratulate you, congratulate Cher and
all of the other contributors to your effort, because I know
firsthand from wearing the helmet for over 30 years that it has
got to be right. It has got to work right. And I also remember
the lesson my father taught me when he first taught me how to
shoot back when I was 10- or 12-years old. With a 410 shotgun,
you don't have to snug it next to your shoulder; but when you
pick up that 12-gauge, you had better snug it on your shoulder
or you are going to be badly bruised. And that is exactly what
you are talking about. If you get pinged with a round of 7.62
ammunition, it doesn't matter; that helmet is going to work.
But if you get hit with a blast and you don't have something to
cushion the blow, you are going to be seriously injured.
And so I thank you for having the inspiration and your
supporters for having the patriotism to participate in this.
And I will tell you, as somebody who is concerned about our
veterans, who has served for four years on the Veterans'
Affairs Committee with Chairman Buyer and is on this Armed
Services Committee, we are going to fix this, and we are going
to fix it right away. And I thank you for your citizenship and
your patriotism.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman for his comments and for
his commitment also to the welfare of our troops.
After consultation with the minority, I now ask unanimous
consent that Mr. Wu, a member of the Science Committee, be
authorized to question the panel members at today's hearing. If
there are no objections, I will now recognize Mr. Wu for five
minutes, and welcome him to the committee.
Mr. Wu. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you very much, Dr. Meaders, for all of your good
work. My questions will primarily be for the next panel.
There is an active pro-school and peace movement in Oregon.
You will see bumper stickers all the time that say, wish that,
when the Pentagon would go into war, they had to hold a bake
sale to do that. I think that is meant as a joke. I certainly
don't believe that, and I commend you for your work.
But the question I will have for the next panel is that we
have appropriated money, with Mr. Brady's help, with Mr.
Murtha's help, for the specific helmet liner kits that you are
talking about, and we have appropriated several million dollars
a couple years ago, and we asked for $5 million for this year.
And I am wondering where that money has gone, because it is
more than an issue of what is happening with taxpayers' money;
it is a matter of what is happening with soldiers' lives in the
field. And I am very, very concerned about where the money that
we have already appropriated has gone and where the money will
go that we are highly likely to appropriate now. But I commend
you for your work in the private sector meanwhile. Thank you
very much.
I yield back to the Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the distinguished gentleman for his
service.
And it now gives me a great deal of pleasure to recognize a
very special person who has served on this committee for a
number of years and who was one of our best members and most
committed members to the health, welfare and safety of our
troops. And I had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting her at a
very difficult and emotional time for her, but she has really
risen to become a star in this country and we deeply appreciate
her involvement here.
After consultation with minority, I ask that the
gentlelady, Mrs. Bono, a member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, a former member of this committee, be authorized to
question the panel members at today's hearing. If there are no
objections, I will now recognize Mrs. Bono.
Mrs. Bono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I like to very much thank you for including me in today's
hearing, and to our witnesses. It is not a question; it is a
typical congressional point I would like to make, and that is
to, first of all, thank you for your initiative. So often our
answers come from the American people, and clearly that is the
case with what you have done here today.
I, of course, have to welcome Cher to Washington, D.C. It
is a pleasure to have you here. A lot has been said about
Sonny. This is not about Sonny, although I do know that he
would be extremely proud and support what the good doctor is
trying to do today. There is nobody in this country that Sonny
loved more than any man or woman in uniform who devoted
themselves to protecting our country. So with that, if anybody
can be on the record for him, I would like to do that.
But Twentynine Palms is not in my district, Marine Base,
but it is near and dear to my heart. It is in my sphere of
influence. I spend a good deal of time up there with our
Marines and consider it a longstanding commitment that,
whatever I can do for them, I will continue to do.
I miss this committee dearly. I am across the hall
currently in a markup. My heart is still with the committee,
Mr. Chairman. If I could make it back, I would love to.
So, again, I would just like to say, we are here. I think
you are hearing unanimity amongst us, which is kind of rare,
especially this year. We support what you are trying to do. And
I hope that the people behind you from the Pentagon hear very
loudly that we would like to help you in your efforts.
And again, Cher, thank you for what you have done. I am
glad you watch C-SPAN. You would think you would have better
things to do with your life than watch boring old us. But thank
you very, very much. And, again, I thank the witnesses for
being here today.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentlelady for her statement and
for her outstanding contribution to this institution and
America.
Dr. Meaders, you did well on your first appearance before
Congress. You wowed them, I guess is the word I would say. No
negatives, all positives. And some questions, legitimate ones,
raised by our good friend, Mr. Buyer, and others. We have the
same concern, because we want to make sure that what we are
doing, as you do, is in the end right and proper. But no one
can question your patriotism and the service of you and your
family to the country. You are an amazing group of people.
And with that, I would like to ask you, your wife, your son
and his wife to stand up, along with Cher, so that we can all
give you a special round of appreciation as you leave the
witness table. Please all stand so we can recognize all of you.
With that, we will convene our second panel of
distinguished witnesses. If you would all take your places at
the table, and we will line up the name tags.
I have already introduced each of the members, so their
statements have already been submitted for the record and have
been accepted without objection.
We will go right down the line. We deeply appreciate you
all being here but, more importantly, your service to the
country.
Since I have already introduced you all and since you are
not strangers to this community, we welcome you back.
General Speakes, we will let you lead off, and then with
General Catto, and then Mr. Smith, and then McCoy. Again, I
want to thank you all for your service to this country. We
deeply appreciate it.
General Speakes.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. STEPHEN M. SPEAKES, DIRECTOR, FORCE
DEVELOPMENT OFFICE, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF G8, U.S. ARMY,
ACCOMPANIED BY SGT. FIRST CLASS LUTZ; MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM D.
CATTO, COMMANDING GEN., MARINE CORPS SYSTEMS COMMAND, U.S.
MARINE CORPS; ROGER M. SMITH, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
NAVY, (LITTORAL AND MINE WARFARE); AND BRIG. GEN. GARY T.
MCCOY, DIRECTOR OF LOGISTICS READINESS, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF/
LOGISTICS, INSTALLATIONS AND MISSION SUPPORT, U.S. AIR FORCE
General Speakes. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Abercrombie, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear in front
of you today. And thank you, too, for your ceaseless support of
the American soldier, the American soldier who is at war today
representing our country.
The Army's number one concern is force protection. We will
talk to you about it today. We will talk about our programs. We
will talk to you frankly about what our challenges are and what
we have in the road ahead to continue to improve the force
protection for our soldiers.
One of the challenges raised today has been whether or not
our programs are joint. We believe in the Army that we are a
member of a joint team. We believe that the jointness that we
are displaying daily is something that you should have
visibility on. I would point, for example, to our work in
tactical wheeled vehicles where we and the Marines are embarked
upon a joint program that has great promise here for the
future. I would point to our work with the joint IED defeat
organization in which we are linked with the joint organization
with the other services, particularly the Marine Corps and the
Navy, as we work to provide better protection for our soldiers
as we look at the greatest threat we are facing now, which is
IEDs.
So those are but two examples where we see the need, and we
understand your guidance that we be joint and that we work for
common solutions as we look at a battleground that is
increasingly challenging for our men and women who are deployed
forward. Everywhere we see an enemy that is more complex, who
puts more challenges in front of us and who ensures that the
answers of today may be challenged tomorrow by the way the
battlefield will appear then. So we continue our relentless
approach to improve force protection to make everything we can
for our soldiers better so that they may survive and operate
with total confidence.
No one solution will fit all circumstances as we look at
the spectrum of conflict from Afghanistan and Iraq, and then we
see some of the challenges here at home as we undertake
homeland defense. We see a very sophisticated array of
capabilities that we have got to provide soldiers.
The focus then is to provide commanders the tools so that
they can make decisions about how they protect their soldiers
given the operating environment that they see.
Our pro-force protection approach includes a reliance on
several time-honored characteristics. First of all, good
training. Good training is linked by what we call TTP: The
techniques, tactics and procedures that enable us to be
effective and successful on a conditioned response in a very,
very adverse environment.
And then the other thing I mentioned earlier was the
ability to give commanders equipping options so that they can
define the best solution for the environment that they are
operating in.
You have invited us here today to talk some specific
issues, and we will do that. We will talk about body armor. We
will talk about the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH), and we will
talk about our armoring efforts. And I want to go into specific
detail on that.
I would like to begin by talking a little bit about
integrated body armor. To do that, I thought rather than have
me talk, what I would do is invite, with your permission, sir,
is a combat veteran who works here in the National Capital
Region with us, in our Program Soldier, Sergeant First Class
Lutz. He is here to my left. He is a combat veteran with a year
in Iraq. He was a part of the Second Infantry, a Striker
brigade that spent a year in Iraq.
He, right now, is equipped as our soldiers in the combat
zone are. And what I will do is start by talking about our body
armor.
As you look at the suit of body armor that he has got on,
what I want to do is detail for you some of the improvements
that you have been directly responsible for that we now see in
effect across the soldiers that are deployed.
First, as you look at his body armor, in his Outer Tactical
Vest (OTV) front and back, you have what we call a Small Arms
Protective Insert (SAPI) plate. That SAPI plate now has gone
through a second iteration of change here in the last two years
in which we have replaced all the SAPI plates that once started
this land combat with a new set that is greatly enhanced in
terms of its protection.
I would now like to draw your attention to his side and
shoulders. As you look at the top of his shoulders, what you
see is what we call the DAP, the Deltoid Axillary Protector. It
is designed to protect an area that we saw on results of combat
with something we needed to fix, which is our ability to
protect the upper shoulder, and so now we have that across all
of our soldiers.
The other thing you see underneath his arm is this side
area, what we call the actual area. And that was another area
where commanders told us that increasingly they were seeing
evidence that we had side shots that were having an impact on
our soldiers, and so what we are now in the process of doing is
fielding a carrier with the Enhanced Small Arms Protective
Insert (ESAPI) plate in it which affords our soldiers the
protection from the side. We have 20,000 sets of that fielded.
We are on track right now to close out that requirement by
December of this year.
So that gives you a quick profile of the kind of
improvements that we are seeing right now in the basic
integrated body armor. Now, the liability, obviously, is it is
31 pounds right now for a medium-weight soldier. That is a lot
of poundage. The liability is that we don't have any other way
to go. Right now, the kind of protection you see there is the
very best that science and technology could afford us.
We continue to improve and work with everything we can to
try to find new technologies and new opportunities. Just this
spring, for example, our acquisition authority put out a new
request for ideas, and we are in the process of evaluating
those ideas. And that evaluation should be complete this
summer. So we don't mean to imply that this evolution of body
armor is something that we are satisfied with or that will be
in effect a year or two years from now. We will improve, and we
will continue to make soldiers safer.
The other thing I would like to do is address very quickly
the issue of head gear. What I would like to do is start.
Sergeant First Class Lutz is wearing the time honored helmet
that we have worn in the Army since the 1980's, and it is known
affectionately as the Kevlar helmet or the PASGT. Now, the
PASGT has some liabilities that we wanted to deal with, and let
me address them. As you take a look at what Sergeant First
Class Lutz is wearing right now, you see, fairly typically, he
has got his night vision equipment on him, and so the night
vision equipment is something we have added over the course of
the last 15 or 20 years, and it weighs a couple of pounds. So
what it has is the impact of pulling the helmet down. And
because of the way that helmet is suspended, which is the way
that has essentially been in effect for the last 30 or 40 years
essentially since Vietnam, his helmet is not really very secure
or stable on his head. It is particularly noteworthy, for
example, when he turns and has to engage in an urban
environment when he is looking up or he is prone where he is
trying to look out to his front--I would like Sergeant Lutz to
demonstrate that for you now so you can see the limits of this
helmet.
What you see is he doesn't have good vision up above him.
And then the other thing you see is that, as he starts to move
toward a more prone position, the extended area of the helmet
to the front does not facilitate him.
Sergeant Lutz, no one can see you down there too well, I am
afraid. The point there is that we have got severe limitations
right now to the ability of that time-honored helmet--good
though it was in the 1980's and 1990's--to do its job today in
today's complicated battlefield.
So then what we did is we moved to a new helmet, and that
is the ACH which is drawn from the Special Operations Command.
In the late 1990's, the Special Operations Command set to work
to find some improvements to this helmet that we now see as the
Advanced Combat Helmet, which is what Sergeant Lutz is now
donning. It has a very different suspension system in it, but
it also has other improvements. It has improved ballistic
protection on the actual outside shell of the helmet, and it
also has a slightly different design. If you notice, it is
about 8 percent less in terms of total area. That was
specifically designed to give the soldier the additional
ability to see to the flank and above him, and also to operate
now where he has got body armor on with the collar protection,
which is something that we had to deal with to give soldiers
freedom to operate. So this helmet now is much more effective
operating in today's complex battlefield. And the suspension
system is a pad-based system which we believe is much more
effective at resisting concussion, which is another area that
we saw a problem.
So we began fielding this in 2002, and we have now been
fielding this to our soldiers across the Army for the last
several years. We now have 600,000 sets of this helmet out
across the Army. So we are very grateful for the support that
it took to make this overall ensemble work, and once again, it
is something that we will continue to improve. But that gives
you a quick profile of where we are.
The next thing I would like to highlight very quickly is
what we have done with up-armored HMMWVs. Up-armored HMMWVs
continue to be an area of great concern. They are the primary
combat platform that soldiers are using in Iraq. We are in the
process right now to continue to move to a totally level one
solution. In other words, a factory-installed gold standard
HMMWV is the coin of the realm that we are striving to attain
across the Army, and we are on track right now to essentially
meet all requirements from the combatant commander by spring of
next year, which will put about 18,000 up-armored HMMWVs
forward in the combat zone. That is a huge investment that you
supported us making. We think it has material improvement in
the overall safety of our soldiers, and that HMMWV is being
improved daily. And the subject of what we are doing with that
is obviously very closely held sensitive information that we
are prepared to go into later on this afternoon in closed
session.
The other area that I would like to address is something
that has been drawn to our attention, which is what are we
doing right now with the ability to render first aid to
soldiers. And the specific issue is that we have discovered
over the last several years that we have significant
improvements in our ability to essentially stop blood from
flowing by enhancing its clot-ability. We have two basic
programs underway that I would like to highlight. And first I
would like Sergeant Lutz to get up.
If you take a look at him right now, on his right front, he
will point out to you the improved first aid kit that we are
providing to all soldiers. In that improved first aid kit is
some pretty sophisticated equipment. Among it, some improved
equipment that enables you to better apply triage to soldiers.
We are now in the business, for example, of allowing soldiers
in the combat zone to actually apply tourniquets. We found that
is very, very important as a lifesaving step when we have
traumatic injury. And the other thing we have is a bandage now
that enhances clotting when we have a wound.
There are two kinds of bandages that are now approved by
the Office of the Surgeon General. Both of them were Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) certified. One is HemCon, and one is
QuikClot. Over the course of the last year, effectively since
September, we have been fielding those solutions to the field.
So, at this point, what we have is a fielding solution that
says we are trying to field one to every soldier forward in the
combat zone, three to each combat lifesaver and then five to
combat medics that are forward with our deployed forces.
At this point, based upon my conversations with our leading
authorities in Iraq, we have approximately 65,000 individual
bandages that are forwarded in the combat zone; we have another
16,000 that are actually in the combat zone being issued. That
leaves us with about 99,000 that we still have to issue just to
fix the forces in Iraq. We are also in the process right now of
conducting detailed work with commanders in Kuwait and
Afghanistan to ensure that we have the same basic flow provided
to them as well.
So, at this point, although our programs are not where we
want them to be--we don't have it to every soldier as we want--
we understand the commitment. We are making the commitment
right now that we will get it done. We will report to our
leadership. General Schoomaker specifically has drawn this as a
point of attention and concern for him. And obviously, ladies
and gentlemen, we will report to you. We recognize the
commitment, and we will make that improvement.
This is a very quick summary. I wanted to highlight to you
the importance of this to us and our continuing commitment to
engage in a dialogue. We thank you for your support. And I
would also entreat you that your support, which you give
repeatedly, for stable and continued support of soldiers in the
area of force protection is absolutely vital to us. Thank you,
sir, for your attention. We await your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Speakes can be found in
the Appendix on page 65.]
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, General.
General, the floor is yours.
General Catto. Thank you, Congressman.
Congressman and distinguished members of the subcommittee,
it is my honor to return to you again today to update you on
the Marine Corps's force protection efforts.
As I complete my final week as a Marine Corps senior
acquisition officer, I want to personally thank you, Chairman
Weldon, for your continued support of our warfighters since we
began combat operations in Iraq three years ago. Without your
leadership in how our Marines have been equipped and the strong
support of this subcommittee to ensure that appropriate
resources were available to the Marine Corps, I would not be
able to provide you with the positive report that you will hear
today in this testimony.
As I told you, in February, the Marine Corps' overarching
strategy since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom and
Operation Iraqi Freedom has been to ensure that 100 percent of
the Marine Corps' force protection requirements are met with
the best, most capable systems available in the world today,
and we have succeeded.
The Marine Corps is committed to aggressively matching our
equipment to changing threats. Our ability to rapidly modify
our vehicle armored systems is a testimony to this commitment.
For example, all of our HMMWVs that are not being replaced by
the M1114 have now been armored since December of 2005 with the
Marine Armor Kit, the best armor kit available.
We were also able to fulfill the U.S. Marine Corps, Central
Command (MARCENT) requirement for armoring all of our Medium
Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVRs) in May of this year, which
is five months ahead of schedule. And by the end of next month,
July 2006, we will have 100 percent of our operational
requirements for M1114s complete.
Providing personal ballistic armor protection to our
warfighters is critical to ensuring their safety. Our
individual protection vest system known as the Interceptor Body
Armor System (IBA) is a modular system that includes the Outer
Tactical Vest, the Small Arms Protective Inserts for the torso,
back and sides. Working together, these systems provide the
best possible levels of personal protection to known and
anticipated threats. This is why 100 percent of our Marine
ground forces have had this improved personal protection
equipment as they rotate into theater.
In support of the Corps' critical requirement to focus on
protecting our Marines from the effects of ballistic
projectiles and fragmentation impacts and penetrations, we have
replaced our 25-year-old Personal Armor System Ground Troops
helmet, known as the Kevlar helmet, with the lightweight
helmet. This helmet provides greater overall coverage of the
skull, weighs less when compared to the standard Kevlar helmet.
Coupled with the ease of determining correct fit of the
suspension sling, the lightweight helmet provides protection
capabilities against fragmentation threats and 9 millimeter
bullets for our Marines in combat.
We are doing absolutely everything we can to ensure the
safety of our Marines by providing them with the world's best
and most effective force protection solutions. To my knowledge,
there are simply no commercial products more capable than the
equipment being issued to our Marines today. However, we
continually conduct market research and commission studies to
identify emerging solutions that offer greater levels of force
protection. In instances where we find more robust capability,
we pursue every action available to get our warfighters the
best equipment as rapidly as possible. And with your continued
support, we can ensure our Marines remain ready for the current
fight and any future fights.
I would be happy to answer questions that either you or any
other members may have.
[The prepared statement of General Catto can be found in
the Appendix on page 72.]
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, General, for your testimony.
Is this your first appearance here now, Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. It is the first appearance before the Tactical
Air and Land Subcommittee.
Mr. Weldon. Great to have you.
Mr. Smith worked on this committee for years and is very
well respected. Now he sits on the other side. But it is good
to have you here. You are a great American. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the committee. Thank you for having me here today to
represent the Navy and to discuss with you the individual
protection equipment that we field through our sailors.
We have 11,000 Navy officers and sailors deployed into
CENTCOM or Central Command area of operations today. About
8,000 of those are individual augmentees to ground units and
Joint Staff requirements.
The Navy procures and fields protection equipment for these
personnel through various procurement agencies in several
different configurations for a number of different mission
requirements, which are determined by the combatant commander.
The mission requirements include Navy expeditionary forces;
as I discussed, individual augmentees assigned to ground
forces; and for shipboard antiterrorism missions. Our Navy
expeditionary forces include our Naval Construction Forces, or
the Seabees, as well as Naval Coastal Warfare Forces. The
individual protection equipment that is procured is fielded to
these deploying units to meet the threat that the units will be
operating in.
The Individual Protective Equipment (IPE) for our Naval
Construction Forces starts with the Personnel Armor System
Ground Troops, or PASGT, Kevlar composite helmet that was
earlier discussed and demonstrated, and the standard Outer
Tactical Vest that was also demonstrated, with either front,
back and side, Small Arms Protective Insert plates or SAPI
plates, or enhanced SAPI plates like the Army and the Marine
Corps. We have also procured 9,533 of the ballistic liner
padded helmet suspension systems for the PASGT helmet.
The helmet suspension systems are distributed to the
deploying Seabees, to the Seabee Readiness Groups located at
Port Hueneme, California, and Gulfport, Mississippi. Seabees
are also issued these pads prior to their deployments to
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF).
The expeditionary forces that are assigned to the Marine
Corps, they receive the type of equipment that the Marine Corps
actually fields, and those would be forces such as dentists,
doctors, our religious personnel that support the Marine
expeditionary forces.
Our Naval Coastal Warfare and Visit Board Search and
Seizure and Enhanced Maritime Intercept Operations Forces,
those folks actually get IPE that is a specialized type of cut
that is unique for their boarding missions. It provides
additional mobility and also safety for waterborne operations.
The forces wear a similar cut helmet to the Army combat--Army
Advanced Combat Helmet. It has a webbed type sling system, and
the vests are flotation vests that provide ballistic protection
as well.
Our acquisition community and our fleet forces right now
are currently evaluating the requirements for some additional
types of padding systems in the helmet, and we are working with
the fleet to work those issues out.
Our individual augmentees, as I said, there are 8,000 of
those personnel. The Army actually trains and equips those
forces before they deploy. If they are assigned to specific
Army units, they go through Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and
the Army's Program Executive Officer soldier or PEO soldier
actually fields their gear to them. We have ``in lieu of''
augmentees that support Joint Force staffs and requirements,
and they actually go through other Army training and doctrine
command sites, and they are issued the same gear by the Army's
PEO soldier.
In closing, I want to thank you again for the opportunity
to testify, and tell you that the Navy procures and equips its
forces with the best available IPE. It is tailored to our
maritime and joint mission requirements and we continue to
conduct market analysis as required to make the resource
sponsors in the fleet knowledgeable of the improvements in the
equipment.
I stand ready for your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 87.]
Mr. Weldon. Thank you very much.
General, the floor is yours.
General McCoy. Chairman Weldon and distinguished members of
the committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you to present the status of Air Force protective
equipment for our expeditionary airmen.
As the Director of Logistics Readiness, Deputy Chief of
Staff For Logistics, Installations and Mission Support, it is
my privilege to report on our force protection efforts, on our
successes as well as our challenges for the future.
And on behalf of Secretary Wynne, General Moseley, and the
men and women of the United States Air Force, thank you for
your strong support.
The Air Force continues to provide significant support to
the Global War on Terror, and we are extremely proud of our
airmen's contribution to the war efforts. We currently have
over 30,000 personnel deployed in support of the Global War on
Terror. And leveraging the ability and the responsiveness
inherent in our air and space expeditionary forces, our airmen
have also been actively involved in humanitarian operations at
home and around the globe and deployed in support of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and other
contingencies. And in fact, since 9/11, we have deployed over
370,000 airmen aggressively fighting the war on terror. We have
flown over 422,000 combat sorties, moved 3.7 million passengers
and close to 1.7 million short tons of cargo and delivered
almost 500 million gallons of fuel. Additionally, the Air
Mobility Command started committing C-17s in a direct delivery
move in 2005 to help mitigate convoy operations over land.
Cargo delivered by air increased by 200 percent from November
of 2004 to November of 2005. And, moreover, the number of
passengers delivered by air increased by 14 percent in this
same time frame.
Now, this purposeful increase in cargo and personnel
deliveries amounted to about 18,000 truck equivalents and over
17,000 bus equivalents of air lift. And this was between
February of 2005 and January of 2006. Additionally, we are
using C-130 aircraft flying an average of 140 sorties per day
supporting cargo in movements in the CENTCOM area of
responsibility (AOR).
And as you know, the Air Force has undertaken a greater
number of various nontraditional roles and missions in Iraqi
Freedom and in Enduring Freedom. Today there are nearly 5,000
airmen performing ``in lieu of'' missions with the United
States Army, including convoy support, detainee operations,
protective service details, military transition, and
reconstruction teams who are rebuilding the infrastructure in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
We have made enormous strides in obtaining more advanced
protective gear and equipment for our airmen, specifically in
the area of body armor, combat helmets, up-armored highly
mobile multi-wheeled vehicles.
We take the safety and welfare of our airmen very, very
seriously. Improved body armor and helmets are critical to
protecting every airman. We are committed to providing the most
advanced protective gear and equipment to ensure the safety of
our number one resource, our airmen.
Thank you, again, for your strong support to the United
States Air Force, and I am honored to have this opportunity to
appear before you today. I offer my written comments for the
record, and I look forward to our discussions on this important
subject.
[The prepared statement of General McCoy can be found in
the Appendix on page 95.]
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, General, for your testimony.
Thank you for your service, and thank each of you for being
here today.
Let me start off by asking some questions of somebody who
just got back from theater.
Sergeant Lutz, can you grab that microphone there for me?
Where are you from, Sergeant?
Sergeant Lutz. Sir, Simi Valley, California.
Mr. Weldon. Simi Valley, California. It is great to have
you here. And thank you for your service. When were you first
deployed to the theater?
Sergeant Lutz. On November 13, 2003.
Mr. Weldon. When you were first deployed, did you have the
old helmet with the old insert or the current helmet, the new
one?
Sergeant Lutz. The Advanced Combat Helmet, sir.
Mr. Weldon. So you never wore the old helmet?
Sergeant Lutz. I wore the old helmet in training, but not
to combat, sir.
Mr. Weldon. Can you tell us in your own opinion the
difference between the two, since you wore both of them?
Sergeant Lutz. The PASGT helmet limits your visibility.
Fighting in combat in Iraq is a three-dimensional battlefield;
it is not the standard Folder Gap in Germany where the enemy is
directly in front of you. In Iraq, in a Stryker vehicle, you
have to constantly look up, down, left and right. The old PASGT
helmet limits your visibility to look up. The Advanced Combat
Helmet, granted, it is a little bit less in, protection-wise,
but it is a lot more comfortable. It allows the soldier to see
more areas; it allows him to hear better than the old PASGT
helmet. It allows him to differentiate where the shot is coming
from, compared to the PASGT helmet, which limits it, and he is
trying to seek where that enemy fire came from.
Mr. Weldon. Old helmet that you had that you wore in the
past, did it have the current insert that we are discussing
today, or was it an old insert, the type that we have referred
to?
Sergeant Lutz. It is the old sling system inserts, sir.
Mr. Weldon. So comparing the inserts, give us your own
impression. I mean, as a soldier that was out there on the
ground, tell us.
Sergeant Lutz. I would honestly tell you, sir, it is like
going from a--not to ping any manufacturer. It is like going
from driving a Yugo to driving a Jaguar.
Mr. Weldon. That much of a difference?
Sergeant Lutz. Oh, yes, sir. It is a lot more comfortable.
It does not weigh anything on your head. It feels a lot more
comfortable. The old PASGT after a while would start to ping in
the middle of your forehead and give you headaches and what we
used to call Kevlar hair. You would rub your hand through your
hair after a while, and it would just hurt. The Advanced Combat
Helmet does not do that.
Mr. Weldon. The liner is part of what we are focusing on
today as well as the helmet, because we are ordering the new
helmets. But it is a question of whether or not these
transitions, these liners--which is what Operation Helmet has
been doing. Did you feel more comfortable and safer in the new
liner with the new helmet?
Sergeant Lutz. Oh, yes, sir. I felt that it was a lot more
comfortable. I actually know one soldier that was in Bravo
Company 123 that was shot dead center in the middle of his
forehead through his glasses when we were in Talafar, and he
walked away just fine.
Mr. Weldon. Amazing.
Was there a problem with heat absorption? That has been one
of the questions or comments raised about the insert. Was it a
problem, when you wore the new insert, with heat absorption?
Sergeant Lutz. We had no problem. Most of our dismounted
patrols in Iraq are in Mosul because our vehicles were too big
to go down the streets, and most of our patrols were
dismounted. They were anywhere from two to three hours long.
Mr. Weldon. Did you have the problem with the helmet
sliding down on your forehead with the old insert versus the
new one? And if so, what was the difference between the two?
Sergeant Lutz. The old PASGT helmet, regardless of what
type of Nighe Observation Device (NOD) you have--and I had on
my helmet, the PVS-14s, which are a little bit lighter. The
PVS-7s would always pull down the front. If you had on Multiple
Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) gear, which you had
to have on the back, it would always push it forward, and it
was just uncomfortable to wear.
Mr. Weldon. Now, you served in theater. Were you serving in
an area where there were Marines also?
Sergeant Lutz. No, sir. I was in Northern Iraq.
Mr. Weldon. Northern Iraq. So no Marines around. Have you
seen the Marine helmet?
Sergeant Lutz. Yes, sir. I have.
Mr. Weldon. Have you ever worn it?
Sergeant Lutz. No, sir. I have not.
Mr. Weldon. Is it a style similar to what you wore when you
talked about that old helmet that you had?
Sergeant Lutz. I do believe it is the same sling-style
system. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weldon. Okay. We appreciate your service to the
country, and your anecdotal comments are very helpful, because,
in the end, what we are about here is helping you have the best
equipment that money can buy. And, again, we deeply appreciate
your service to the country.
Sergeant Lutz. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Weldon. General, I have got a--let us see. General
Catto, I have got to get into this unclassified report on the
comparison of the lightweight helmet sling suspension versus
the BLSS. And according to the non-ballistic impact testing,
the test results show that the lightweight helmet, the sling
suspension, I guess, withstands 157 Gs, versus the model that I
guess the doctor has put forward that withstands 79 Gs. That is
a ratio of almost two to one better. Can you explain that, why
you wouldn't want that for the soldier?
General Catto. I think, Chairman Weldon, we need to define
this thing a little bit differently.
There are three issues that we are concerned about with any
combat helmet. The first is ballistics and fragmentation, and
that is either a bullet or a piece of fragmentation that hits
the helmet, and what kind of protection do you have. And I
would tell you that I think both the Advanced Combat Helmet and
the lightweight helmet in terms of just the helmet itself, they
are made of the same kind of equipment, and they are basically,
in terms of the material, the same. And the Marine Corps has no
criticism of the Advanced Combat Helmet. In fact, we buy that
helmet for our reconnaissance folks and for our people that are
in the air, naval gunfire and liaison crews, because they are
guys that do either direct operations that need that kind of
capability that the sergeant talked about and that do parachute
ops, so that when they fall or have the kind of blunt force
trauma that they may have through parachute ops, that is a very
good helmet. And I think that that needs to be clarified, that
we do use the helmet and think that the ACH is a good helmet.
But you have got the ballistic piece that I talked about.
Then you have the trauma caused by a crash, whether it is in a
vehicle or being hit with an object other than a fragmentation,
because the velocity that you get hit with is different. Or you
have the third piece, blast, which is the result of concussion
and percussion that Mr. Buyer talked about and the results of
that. And so all of those things are threats to us.
Now, from a standpoint for the Marine Corps, the
lightweight helmet was for us competed for in 2002. And at that
time, the threat was primarily thought to be ballistic.
Now, if you look at the liner that we have in the
lightweight helmet, it is an order magnitude better than the
old Kevlar helmet in terms of the way it sits on--the fit, the
fact that it does not move around, and it is a very solid
helmet.
The issue that we have is interesting in that I have
neurosurgeons that say it is important to maintain that
distance so when you have a ballistic impact on the helmet the
force is not transmitted to the cranium of the Marine or
Corpsman wearing that helmet.
As we have talked through this, I have heard you say to me
twice that you want facts, and then you have said you want to
do the right and proper thing. And we agree with that. Mr.
Abercrombie spoke to facts; Mr. Buyer talked about the medical
research; Mr. Simmons said it has got to be right. Well, here
is the issue in my mind. Dr. Meaders, who is a great American,
talked about studies. I have never had access to the studies
that he has. If he would forward them to me, I promise you, we
will give them full measure and look at them from a medical
standpoint.
We asked the Aero, the Oregon Aero folks that provide the
helmet inserts, to give us access to their studies that they
say the pads are better. They have not provided them to us. So
what we did in March of this year is, I went to the University
of Virginia, the Center for Biometric Studies, and commissioned
a study for them to give me rigorous data on, what are the
results when this helmet is struck by a ballistic impact? And
so what I am going to have within the next two months is
rigorous data from a medical facility that tells me what the
results on that, the helmet, are.
If they come back to me and they say that either the liner
that we have in the lightweight helmet is inadequate and the
padded system is better, the first thing I will do is recommend
to the commandant that he move to the upgraded system, and I
will come to you and ask for the funds to do it.
The issue, in my mind, is something that all of you in your
wisdom talked to initially, is, what are the facts. I don't
know. And we are trying to get to that issue, and when we have
them, we will make the decision, because my responsibility is
to ensure that there is no unintended consequences here and
that we are doing the right things.
Mr. Weldon. General, I don't want to dominate the time
here. I want to give my colleagues a chance. But I think you
are talking about the impact, and we are talking about the
protection of the head from rollovers and the other instances
we are seeing, but I have an impact attenuation study on Marine
Corps helmets dated 1 August 2003 from the Marine Corps team at
Natick. And in the conclusion and recommendation, it ends up by
saying the all-foam pad suspension system of the MICH is
superior for impact protection.
General Catto. Congressman, I would agree with you. It is
superior for the crash protection. Remember, I talked a little
bit about we use mission specific helmets for our recon folks
and for our anglical folks. The issue I have is I have to
tailor a helmet for the specific mission. And, to date, we
think our most significant threat is the ballistic threat, not
the crash that you might receive in an automobile.
Now, I have gone to the Combat Trauma Registry and asked
for them to give me the data on, where are we getting these
injuries? Are they for the most part from ballistic incidents,
fragmentation, vehicle accidents?
When you say it is an IED issue where a Marine or soldier
is injured, we don't have the data today that can tell us, was
he hurt by the percussion? Was he hurt by the fact that he
bounced around within that vehicle because of the concussion?
Or was he hurt by a fragmentation? So, I mean, it is an issue
of getting back to, I need more data and I need the specific
facts before I make that decision.
Mr. Weldon. General, I thank you. Before I turn to the
Army, I just would say that what is a little hard to understand
is that we currently have, my understanding is, 6,000 Marines
in theater that are using the pads provided by Operation Helmet
because their choice on the ground in theater was that that
helmet and that insert provides a better level, in their
opinion, of protection and comfort. That is hard for us. You
have to understand that. We will put the money on the table,
but it is hard for us to recommend--so I turn to the general
and say, General, you made the decision now for the entire Army
with this pad system, did you not?
General Speakes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weldon. Now, you just heard what the general said here.
And I don't want to pit the services against each other, but we
are in a bind here. We want to give the best. So would you
comment on why the Army made the decision to go--because you
have similar types experiences with our soldiers.
General Speakes. Yes, sir. And as you mentioned, what we
have is different decisions at different times. And I think
that is a part of the overall factor of what decision was best
at a particular time.
Reviewing the chronology, what we had over the course of
the late 1990's was Special Operations Command working on the
Modular Integrated Communications Helmet (MICH), and MICH was
designed to do a couple things: first, improve protection to
the shell itself, improve ballistic protection.
And then the other issue that I think is relevant and Dr.
Meaders talked about is the concept of sports injury. And the
concept of sports injury said that, in addition to the basic
ballistic characteristic of the shell, the other issue that we
were concerned with was the ability of the suspension system to
transfer or shield the skull from the shock of a blow, of
something coming external to the helmet. And so the testing
that we did indicated that, if you take a look at a typical
football injury, what you have is somewhere around 40 Gs worth
of impact, and that the typical contact that the authorities
that have done the testing for us indicate a typical contact on
a football field is.
Then as you take a look at the number of Gs that will cause
permanent damage or at least injury to the brain, what we are
looking at is about 95 Gs. We believe right now that our
helmet, the ACH, comes in and resists the typical impact to the
tune of about 78 Gs. In other words, it is effective enough
where it will present an adequate resistance to the typical
modeled threat that we saw such that you won't have a brain
injury.
And so that was the critical issue, and when we compared it
to our PASGT, the old helmet that we had, the old PASGT was up
somewhere around 150 Gs. In other words, transferring a lot of
blunt force trauma to the brain.
So that was the basic characteristic that we used as we
made the evaluation back when we decided to evaluate and then
to adopt that helmet as the Army standard, which happened back
in 2002. And then we began full fielding in 2002, 2003, 2004.
So it was a combination then of the ballistic protection, and
that is a significant improvement because we made substantial
enhancements to the actual shell, and then the improved pad
suspension system, which we believe does significant benefits
in terms of the ability of that helmet system to resist impact
and shield the brain from those impacts.
Those are the factors that we understand, sir.
Mr. Weldon. Gentlemen, the dilemma that we are in, wanting
to provide you and our troops the best is, you understand we
have two soldiers that perhaps were on the ground in the same
theater, fighting the same enemy, with significantly different
head protection. We are not the ones that can pick or choose,
and we rely on you to do that. As a request, we have got 8,000
soldiers, 6,000 Marines using a system voluntarily of inserts
provided by a private foundation. You have to understand the
confusion we have here.
If that is the system that the military at the level of the
sergeant over here wants, we want them to have it, and we will
pay for them. And that is our frustration, General.
General Catto. Mr. Chairman, and you know, we have talked
to this now for three years, and I am in violent agreement with
you. The Marine Corps would tell you that we have these
questions, also, and that is why we commissioned the study in
March. And if you remember, you go back in history, we talk
about this very kind of issue with body armor where we had
questions, commissioned the study, and then that was the
evolution that brought us to the side SAPI plate.
What I want to bring everybody back to, there are three
issues here: There is ballistic protection; there is crash
protection; and then there is the protection from the results
of a concussion or percussion. We don't know about the blast
piece, the concussion, and we need research for that. But all I
have heard for the ACH from everyone is that it is better
against the crash, and it is more comfortable.
I have to have the rigorous data that tells me what is the
best solution for blast, for concussion, you know, that piece,
for crash and for ballistic protection. And that is why I say I
need the help on the research to get to that.
Mr. Weldon. I understand, General. But you would not sit
there and say that the Army is not looking at all three of
those criteria for their helmet, I would think.
General Catto. Absolutely not. I never have a bad word to
say about the Army, because we use the same research
facilities. We ask the same questions. We share the same
engineers. When I get this study, I will share it with the PEO
soldier and my Army counterparts. And I am not even sure
General Speakes is aware of this. The Army has just started a
study, I am told last month, to look at the same thing, and,
again, we will share the results of this.
Mr. Weldon. When will your study be done?
General Catto. Ours is supposed to be done, I believe, in
September. We may have preliminary results before that.
Mr. Weldon. I think we need to get preliminary results
before that only because, I mean, the Army is already using the
helmet. They have obviously addressed all three areas that you
just said were the important element for the Marine Corps. The
Marines have voted with their mouths, telling Dr. Meaders,
``Send us the helmets.''
General Catto. I would go back and say, I need the facts. I
don't have the facts. I don't have the fact on what is
happening in the Combat Trauma Registry for what has really
happened to our guys. And I think that, remember, the Marine
Corps has not said we cannot use those pads. And that is the
only piece of gear that we have said can be an optional piece
for the commanders. Remember when we worked through Dragon
Skin? So we have the same kind of issue.
Mr. Weldon. Well, let me say this to you, it will not be a
question of money.
General Catto. We know that.
Mr. Weldon. And you know that. I don't want anyone in
America to think that we will not provide this equipment. And
Dr. Meaders has stepped up and done something with his
foundation. And, to be honest with you, General, there are some
e-mails I want you to look at that came from some Marine Corps
personnel that are absolutely outrageous.
General Catto. I have seen that e-mail. And as you know, in
every big organization and everyone that is an executive,
things happen that you would be unhappy with. I did not like
the tone of that e-mail, and that has been taken care of
already.
Mr. Weldon. I appreciate that, and I know Dr. Meaders does
as well. Look, he has no agenda here.
General Catto. As I think he would tell you, because we
didn't get a chance to talk earlier, I thanked Dr. Meaders in
the anteroom for what he is doing. And this is not invented
here or we are unhappy with this; we all want the same thing.
But I reemphasize, I need to have the facts, and that is my
responsibility, as you know. And I think you can help us with
that.
Mr. Weldon. Well, again, we think the facts are there with
the Army. But I would just say that we want you to do this as
soon as possible. I mean, this is a top priority.
General Catto. And we concur with that. That is why we
started the study.
Mr. Weldon. The gentleman from New York is recognized.
Mr. Israel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for the passion that you bring to this critical issue.
Mr. Chairman, I want to shift the focus from helmets that
are designed to protect our forces from injury to the
coagulants that could save them from bleeding to death after
the injury.
General Speakes, I deeply appreciate your candor in
acknowledging that there have been some difficulties in
fielding the coagulants. The DOD has said that about 50 percent
of fatalities are the result of blood loss, and arterial
coagulants are literally life savers. The Army has had a policy
that every service member in the theater would have at least
one coagulant. This is an example, as you know, General, of one
of two products that are used by the military.
This is one example. This is an example, General, of what
happens when things go wrong. This is one of my daily
newspapers on Long Island. Front page story, June 8: Blood Clot
Bandages Frontline Shortage: Some troops calling home to ask
for lifesaving dressings.
I would like to take you through a brief chronology because
our time is limited, and then I have some questions. General,
on June 1, one of my constituents, Doreen Kenney, whose son
Jacob Fletcher was killed in Iraq, visited my office. And she
reported that she was receiving e-mails from service members in
the theater asking her to please send them arterial coagulants
because they didn't have any. That day my office contacted the
Army and the Navy and asked about any known shortages. The
response that date was that no one was aware of any shortages
but that they would investigate. We remained in contact with
the Department as they attempted some fact finding. One week
later, this newspaper story appears.
We transmitted it on June 8 to the Army and to the Navy.
Then the very next day, Friday, June 9, the Army signed a $3
million contract with one coagulant company that had been
funded by Congress the prior December; Congress funded $3
million to contract for coagulants. One week after my office
called, one day after we submitted this news story to them, the
Army contracted for those coagulants. The same week, the Army
began negotiating with another company to increase the arterial
coagulants.
On Tuesday, June 13--and this is one of the things that I
have a hard time understanding. Despite the fact that the Army
signed the contract a few days before, on Tuesday, June 13, we
received this e-mail from the Army, and I am quoting: Army has
sent over 200,000 blood-clotting bandages to theater. This
exceeds the requirements for one bandage per soldier.
So the Army is telling us on June 13 that all the
requirements have been fulfilled, and yet the Army only days
before finally consummated a contract that had been funded by
the Congress the prior December. In fairness to the Army, the
very same day somebody got back to us after sending that e-mail
saying, well, upon further investigation, there may be some
distribution problems.
Since we began this inquiry, the Army has in fact been
responsive to us, and I appreciate that. We have been in
contact with the Army on a daily basis. And we have been told
by you today and by others in the Army that 117,000 units have
been purchased and have been shipped to the theater; that the
Army is doubling procurement of coagulant bandages from 10,000
a month to 20,000 a month starting this month; and that every
service member will have at least one.
My initial question, General, is, despite the fact that you
have recognized that this is a problem, what are we going to do
to make sure that the problem does not occur again? We are
ramping up production. We are ramping up distribution, but what
is to stop another distribution problem in theater? What are we
doing in terms of the roots of this problem? If you would
answer that, and if I have time, I will have another question
for you.
General Speakes. Sir, absolutely. You addressed I think
very accurately the chronology of our internal investigation to
see what was happening with this very important issue.
I think procedurally we have learned some important
lessons. First of all, we had an early determination that we
would make this what we call SBE or stay-behind equipment, so
that what happened, when soldiers exchange roles, the stuff
that is critical, that is going to remain in the theater, that
is of limited supply, stays in theater. This wasn't on the
order that we had put out at the Department directing that it
be stay-behind equipment. This week, we made the correction. It
is a part of a review that we are undertaking right now at the
Department level to make sure we have a current list of the
material that we are mandating stay in the combat zone because
it is in short supply. So that is step one, official
recognition at the Department level that this is critical
property that must remain in the combat zone.
The next issue, sir, that I think your constituents very
accurately identified was, where we headed, we were not sure
that it was actually in the hands of soldiers. In other words,
it was out distributed in mass sets, but it was not out where
soldiers actually needed. We are pretty confident that we have
very good distribution in the medical command; in other words,
the combat medic had it, but not all the combat lifesavers,
who, as you know, are basic soldiers who just get additional
training, or that the individual soldiers have it. This is now
a chain of command focus. The chain of command is specifically
focused on distribution and ensuring it is an element of
precombat checks, just as you would check for the presence of a
weapon or ammunition. So I think it is a part of our culture.
This, as you know, is new technology. It is a new
capability. For years, I wore a first aid pack around me that
meant nothing. Now we have got a critical lifesaving capability
that we in the chain of command have got to be much more
sensitive to. You have our attention, sir. We understand how
important it is to soldiers, and we will get it fixed.
Mr. Israel. General, I appreciate that. My time has
elapsed. I am just going to put on the record two questions,
and then I will follow up with you. One is, there was a report
that as many as 30,000 packets essentially were stuck in a pile
and may have even been thrown out because they exceeded the 6-
month expiration date. Now, one of the things that I am very
careful about at home in my medicine chest is opening it up to
make sure that Tylenol hasn't exceeded the expiration date. How
is it possible that 30,000 of these packages were just thrown
out because someone didn't figure out that we have got to use
these within 6 months? I am going to ask you to look into that;
we don't have time to get a full answer, but I will contact you
tomorrow to follow up.
And second, General, if the Chair will permit, you had said
that you would be reporting to this committee on the progress
that you were making in achieving the 5-3-1 goals. Can we
expect you to report to the committee on a monthly basis,
General?
General Speakes. Sir, we would be glad to report on a
monthly basis.
Mr. Israel. Thank you.
I appreciate it and will follow up.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the distinguished gentleman for his
excellent questions, and we will continue to pursue this. I now
recognize the gentleman from Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Catto, I appreciate your passion for fact-based
decision-making. The study that is being done in Virginia, will
it include the things that Chairman Buyer talked about in terms
of his concern for the veterans' perspective?
General Catto. We are looking primarily at the first
increment of this for ballistic protection, because we already
know what happens based on the anecdotal data that we have with
the ACH in terms of it being slightly better in terms of the
crash protection. So I think you ask a very important question,
though. We are going to need funding to get to this correctly,
and we are going to want whatever kind of help we can get from
Mr. Buyer and this committee to make sure that we have the
right information so that we make the right choice.
Mr. Conaway. Is the padded system--I played football and
wore both kinds of helmets. Will the study show for the
ballistic hits the padded system transfer shocks through the
neck and into the spine that might not otherwise be there?
General Catto. That is one of the functions of this study.
We are looking to find out, what are the results of that kind
of trauma, and how is it transferred?
Mr. Conaway. So if it shows that the pad systems do not
degrade the ballistic protection, you would be willing to
switch to the other?
General Catto. Absolutely.
Mr. Conaway. But based on facts and a study from----
General Catto. Absolutely. And as we said, we don't have a
preconceived position here. I just want to be sure that, before
I make that decision or recommend that decision be made, that
we have the right data to support it.
Mr. Conaway. General Speakes, does the Army have any kind
of data like that, the ballistic characteristics of the pad
system versus a sling system on ballistic hits?
General Speakes. Sir, let me take that for the record. We
have studied material, but I don't know for sure that it
addresses that specific issue.
Mr. Weldon. Will the gentleman yield on that point? And I
will yield the gentleman extra time.
Mr. Conaway. Actually, let me yield back. That was my last
question.
Mr. Weldon. General, the point I have to ask, then is, why
would you then issue this helmet to your recon folks who are in
a more hostile environment? Why would you do that if you are
not satisfied that perhaps enough testing has been done.
General Catto. Well, remember now, I said we issue our
recon guys both helmets. They have the ACH for certain direct
action missions or missions where they are doing parachute ops,
where we are more concerned about the crash issues. And in
those kinds of missions, they are not intending to be involved
in firefights, they are intending to do the reconnaissance
piece, collect intelligence, and then get out of the area. And
those missions where we think that they may be involved in a
firefight or the high probability, they are going to wear the
lightweight helmet, which, by design, is significantly bigger,
and we think slightly better in terms of the ballistic
protection. So it is really mission specific.
Mr. Weldon. You are not saying they carry two helmets
around.
General Catto. We said they are issued two, we didn't say
they carry two.
Mr. Weldon. The gentleman is finished?
Mr. Conaway. Yes, the Chairman is recognized.
Mr. Buyer. I am a little challenged, but I am going to stay
for the testimony further.
What was your motivation to do this study in March?
General Catto. Mr. Buyer, the issue for us--because we have
had persistent questions about this, and our own guys asking
for the helmet, we have gone out and said okay, we need to have
the specific data. Because we have the same kind of questions
you do----
Mr. Buyer. All right. Stop. Was there any motivation that
you would then do a study on blast? Did you ever have a
motivation to study blast?
General Catto. We will look at blast in the next increment.
Mr. Buyer. All right. Let me rephrase the question. When
you made a decision, you were motivated to do a study on
ballistics. At that time did you have an equal motivation to
study blasts?
General Catto. We did not.
Mr. Buyer. All right.
General Catto. Now, can I go back and say remember----
Mr. Buyer. No.
General Catto. We don't have the combat trauma information
to tell us where our injuries are coming from.
Mr. Buyer. Let me just take a moment, if I may, Mr.
Chairman. This is going to be really important for us to get
this out. We have done everything we can, right? You have got
your side plates, right, protected from the side. You have got
your front plates, but we do all this, you are going to protect
the neck, the throat, the groin, we are going to protect all of
this because we are so concerned about when the blast protects
here. We have lost limbs, that is what I have to pay for in the
VA, I have got to take care of this.
So we have taken care of the torso, we want to take care of
the limbs, we are going to take care of the groin, but we are
going to lose the brain. So we have created the four polytrauma
centers in Richmond, in Palo Alto, Minneapolis and Tampa. Why?
Because we take your soldiers, sergeant, and we do everything
we can, not to focus on the extremities, it is to focus on
brain. And we focus on the brain, because if we can't take care
of the brain, what good is the rest?
So the reason I am taking this moment is I want you to
leave here today with even greater motivation than you had to
do that ballistic study because--where is the helmet you had?
Grab your helmet, the one you would be wearing in theater. Now
put the helmet on. This is the consequence I am dealing with at
the polytrauma centers, okay.
So where I talk about where we are going to have to come up
with this is, you have got the two helmets, you are trying to
do it based on a mission, you are trying to be as responsive
because you led those soldiers--I am not going to be the one,
you have done this.
But we want to try to figure out how we can come up with
this helmet. You Marine Corps, you debated the helmet forever.
World War II, big debate, right? Should we strap it, unstrap it
when we come off the ship? You guys have had the debates on the
helmet for years. But we look at this one now and go okay, we
understand you want as much flexible movement because you are
in the urban warfare fight and you want to be able to take a
round, but when the pressure comes in it cannot escape. I don't
know if this foam is the answer, I really don't, and I welcome
the research. But where is that blast and force going to go? It
has got to go somewhere, because right now it is being absorbed
by the brain.
And it is remarkable, the expense to the American treasury
right now to take care of our soldiers. We have even taken
apart the cranium and stored it in the body to permit the brain
to rest. We are doing incredible things to save human life.
So as we do all of this, we are not taking care of the
brain. So I just want to take a moment here to just reinforce
to you how important that is. And I agree with all of you, that
you are doing everything you can to say that we cannot do every
consequence, we can't, and I know that and I recognize that.
But I want to work with you, I want to work with the Armed
Services Committee, and I want to thank the chairman and I want
to thank you for doing this. And I will help fund whatever we
can, okay. Thank you.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman for his outstanding
presentation.
The gentleman is recognized, Mr. Wu.
Mr. Wu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on
your pointing out that the Army and the Marine Corps had
similar decisions to make. And it is my understanding that the
Army and the Marine Corps had the same data about helmet
safety, or very, very similar data, and one service went one
way, and thus far, the other service has not chosen to go to
what Marines in the field seem to be choosing for themselves.
We have two Major Generals before us. Didn't you all have
the same data in front of you to make your decision?
General Speakes. Sir, I don't know that the specific data
that we had in terms of how it was shared or what the common
situational awareness of it was when we made the decision back
in 2002, I will take that for the record.
General Catto. Mr. Wu, when we looked at this helmet in
2002, we didn't have a respondent from industry come in with a
padded solution.
Mr. Wu. But that was 2002, this is 2006.
General Catto. Yes, sir. And that is why we are looking at
an upgrade.
Mr. Wu. And you have 6 or 7,000 Marines that have selected
a different helmet. And it is my understanding, or at least
people have given me information to the effect that folks have
tried to supply the Marine Corps with information and the
Marine Corps has been resistant to that. And I would like to
follow up with you offline about that.
General Catto. Mr. Wu, I welcome that discussion. If that
information has been provided to us, I am not aware of it,
because if it was, I would act on it. As I said, I have asked
for these studies from Oregon Aero, and I never received them.
When Dr. Meaders said he had studies, I never----
Mr. Wu. Well, we have a disputed fact here. And we will try
to resolve that and we will work with you to do that. My
understanding is that both Dr. Meaders and others have tried to
supply you and the university with information and that there
has been resistance to that.
I want to focus on a different aspect of this issue, which
is that this Congress appropriated $2.2 million specifically
for helmet padding in fiscal year 2005, and I just called the
Oregon Guard today, and they used $200,000 of that money. Now,
I really respect the job that Dr. Meaders and others have done
in raising private money, but we should not be outfitting our
soldiers through charitable foundations. We appropriated $2.2
million, $200,000 of that money has been spent by the Oregon
Guard, and I want to know where the other $2 million are.
Now, the problem is, I mean, it is not just a matter of
potential wastage of taxpayer money in that there is $2 million
that I don't know where that has gone, but it is also the case
that we have asked for $5 million this year to improve helmet
liners, and I want to make sure that that money that we approve
here is actually saving lives in the field.
Back in fiscal 2005, there was $2.2 million appropriated,
there was $2.5 million in the House appropriations report, in
conference, it was cut to $2.2 million. And I don't know how to
account for that $2 million, and that is why I have stayed here
that long, even though I am not on that committee because by my
count, there is a couple million dollars missing. And for some,
that may be just rounding error, but it is a significant amount
of money, and it makes a real difference to troops in the
field.
General Catto. When you say ``Guard,'' I assume you are
addressing this to General Speakes?
Mr. Wu. Well, it was appropriated to the Army Guard, but my
understanding is, is that that money can be reprogrammed for
any branch of the service.
General Catto. I can't speak to that because I am not aware
of that. If it was appropriated to the Army Guard, that was not
a Marine Corps issue at the time, and we will have to talk
offline.
Mr. Wu. Well, what I need to point out to you is that money
was appropriated for fiscal 2005, which ended September 30th of
last year. The Oregon Guard told me that they were not offered
the money from that appropriation until the last month or two.
Now, somehow, that money was held up into the wrong fiscal
year. Now that may seem like a small accounting issue to some,
but that is 10 months or 12 months in the field with the wrong
kind of helmet for others, and that is why I am raising this
money issue and the specific appropriation issue today.
General Speakes. Sir, this is clearly an issue that the
Army needs to take a look at. At this point, I don't know the
specific status of the Oregon Guard and this money. What I can
assure you is that at this point that we have bought 660,000 of
the ACH, that we are continuing to buy 30,000 a month.
Mr. Wu. Well, Major General, what I can tell you about the
situation with the Oregon Guard, when they needed the helmets,
they had to borrow them from California and Florida and
elsewhere, and then when they were asked how much money can you
use, they used $200,000 because they had borrowed a whole lot
of helmets, and they said why don't you go to those other guard
units in California and Florida and elsewhere in the northwest
and see if they can use some money now because we had to borrow
those helmets, but we don't have any more than $200,000.
So I am wondering why there was a significant delay, much
more than 12 months, and where the missing $2 million is.
Because we are looking at a $5 million appropriation for fiscal
year 2007, and I want to make sure that that money goes to be
used the way that it was intended to save soldiers lives.
General Speakes. Sir, I understand your concern. We will
work it. And we owe you an answer, and I understand your
commitment.
Mr. Wu. And let me know if you have any problems
reprogramming that money from one service to another or between
the Guard and the regular Army or the Marine Corps, and we will
work on that with you.
General Speakes. Sir, I appreciate it. We will do that.
Mr. Wu. Thank you, General.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman for his questions.
General, I don't want to beat a horse to death, General
Catto, but we have a copy up here of Oregon Arrow's test
results. Has the Marine Corps asked them for their test
results?
General Catto. Sir, yes we have. I have not seen those
results, we asked for them in September.
Mr. Weldon. Here they are. And they were comparative
results. And what we are told here is that these are basically
the same evaluations with the Marine Corps lightweight helmet,
and the results are pretty much what we have heard the Army
state to be the case.
You know, it is hard for us to be here and to understand
all the dynamics in question here. What we do know is very
simple. We do know we want the best protection. General, I will
have to ask you this question, General Speakes, are all of our
Guard and Reserve being retrofitted with the inserts that we
are talking about here?
General Speakes. Sir, absolutely. Let me talk about it.
Because of the need for a form fit, what we are doing is
using the Rapid Fielding Initiative, which, as you know, is a
program we are using across the Army. And we have essentially
started with Guard and Reserve deployers and worked our way
across the deployment system, over 600,000 soldiers fielded to
date. And we are using the RFI team to go to units and do unit
set fielding, where we are getting a form fit for every soldier
in unit, in most cases, before they go into combat, and then we
are extending that program so we are going across the rest of
the Army. So our commitment is to field all the way out to
900,000 so we get everybody taken care of at all composts.
Mr. Weldon. So that is underway right now?
General Speakes. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Weldon. General, you can make my day by simply saying
while you are doing whatever studies you are doing, 6,000 of
the Marines in theater--which I think are 20-something
thousand--are using these inserts. I am not talking about the
helmet test, I am talking about the inserts that are certified
for use which your special ops recon people are using.
We will give you the money, you already have the money.
Let's put Dr. Meaders out of business. Let's buy these inserts
and make them available for the troops today. We are with you,
Democrats, Republicans. You have got the money, buy them. Let
the Marines use them as they are doing, and then if there is a
study that shows we should improve it another way, then fine.
To me, if it makes the soldiers who are using these inserts
feel comfortable, then we ought to do that. You still do the
study, but let's do that now. And we are not going to take this
out of the Marine Corps budget, I will go to the wall, as I
have for the Marines, and I think my colleagues would join with
me.
General Catto. Congressman, you have always been a great
supporter, and your heart is pure and I love that. I will not
go ahead and authorize a use of those pads unilaterally until I
have the data that says what the right decision is.
Now having said that, I am not going to tell them they
cannot use it, but the issue we have talked about here, it has
been primarily comfort or a better protection against crash. I
have got to have the data to make sure that we make the right
decision before we, as a service, move one way or the other.
And I am not trying to be a roadblock here.
Mr. Weldon. Well, respectfully, General, I would say the
Army is looking at the same three areas that you are looking
at, they are not just looking at ballistics, they are looking
at crash, they are looking at everything. They have made a
decision. And I understand that recon has a different function,
and you have made that decision for them, but not for the
others. But the decision, in my opinion, has already been made,
it has been made on by the Marines on the ground. And this
wasn't something forced on them, there was no marketing team
over in the theater saying hey, buy this. This was a group of
Americans who said we will raise the money to give you, if you
want it, and 6,000 Marines now have that.
So I am going to tell you what I am going to do; we are
either going to raise the money privately, and I am going to
get behind Dr. Meaders and do it--and if we do that, it is
going to embarrass the service, we shouldn't have to do that--
or we are going to force it through an appropriation process
that this Congress has the ability to do. And I don't mean to
be blunt, but that is how strongly I feel about this based on
what we have heard and seen today.
The gentleman and chairman is recognized.
Mr. Buyer. Thank you very much.
With regard to the study on the blast, is that something
that you have available dollars that you could initiative, or
you are going to have to wait on something from us?
General Catto. We don't have the dollars available now, no.
Mr. Buyer. Okay, wow. All right. Well, then, we are going
to have to put something together. And we are also going to
look to you for your expertise, that when we do this study,
that we have to have the right modelling. And it is not just a
study, but helmet by itself. It is, as the soldier depicted,
with everything we have put on them.
And we have such great capacities in our country to do
wonderful and marvelous things, and to think that we don't have
the ability to create a helmet that is multifaceted sort of
would be amazing to me. I just want you to know that is how I
feel.
And I am not going to sit here and supplant my judgment for
you, because you gentlemen have commanded troops in battle, and
I am not going to question your sincerity because you know what
it is like to lose a soldier or an airman or Marine, so I am
not going to get into that with you. But I--man, I feel for
them. I also was in the desert, and I know what that was like
in the first Gulf War. And that was a miserable helmet--
Sergeant, you are absolutely right to wear, piercing headaches.
I actually got a care package, and in that care package were
those air bubbles, you know, the plastic air bubbles. I cut out
the air bubbles and put it in my helmet to rest on my head on
air, and it immediately removed my headaches.
So soldiers are going to--and mere Marines are going to do
whatever they can out there; they want to operate, but they
also want to be able to exist and live. I think you guys know
that.
All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to your friends
from the Air Force and the Navy, we are not trying to slight
you. And for the record, we are going to provide a whole series
of questions on these issues. And without objection, I am going
to submit the documentation and data provided by the companies
that staff has inquired of regarding these inserts, and that
all will be a part of the record, as well as additional
questions that we would ask of each of our witnesses which we
would ask you to respond.
We are going to have a classified brief following this,
which I want to get underway because of the debate on the
floor, so I will not take the hearing any longer. But again,
just want to say that--and especially to my friends in the
Marine Corps, General, this to me is so obvious that it is--I
won't say ridiculous--and I understand you want the best
protection, we want the best protection; but the fact is the
Army has made a choice, they are using this, it is a
certifiable system.
You are allowing the Marines to put this system in place in
their helmets in theater--or 6000 of them already have it. To
me it is a no brainer that we buy these inserts from whoever--I
don't care what contract it is. I understand there are three
contractors that make this, I don't care who buy it from, none
of them are from my area of the country, none of them I even
know whether or not they are, I couldn't even name them except
Oregon Aero, but it is a question where this has been brought
to our attention. And if it was just somebody coming in saying
this, but when you have 6,000 Marines and 2,000 soldiers, and
all other soldiers using it in theater, it just defies logic
for us not to know why this is not being done. And to have to
go out and continue to beg and borrow and raise money from the
public is not the answer, it is not what the American people
want to hear.
Again, I want to thank all of you, and especially our
civilians who have come in to testify, who have reached out in
a very positive way as citizens for your effort, Dr. Meaders
and family. Cher, thank you for being here. And Cher, you have
impressed me today not because you impress me as a musician and
as an artist, but you sat through a 2-1/2-hour Congressional
hearing, and that in itself deserves a round of applause. So
thank you for being here with us today. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
June 15, 2006
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 15, 2006
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 15, 2006
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WELDON
Mr. Weldon. General, the point I have to ask, then is, why would
you then issue this helmet to your recon folks who are in a more
hostile environment?
General Speakes. We have provided a copy of the requested helmet
study to the committee under separate cover.
Mr. Weldon. What types of combat helmets are issued to sailors,
Seabees, small boat teams, etc?
Mr. Smith. Shipboard security forces currently use the standard
issue Army Personal Armor System, Ground Troops (PASGT) helmet.
Vessel Boarding Search and Seizure Enhanced Maritime Interdiction
Operations Level II mission boarding teams use the RBR helmet, which is
named for the contractor that produces the helmet. It has the same
measurements as the Army Advanced Combat Helmet.
Naval Coastal Warfare (NCW) units are currently being equipped with
the RBR helmet. This is a replacement for the PASGT helmet, which is
still held by reserve units in the United States. Personnel are issued
RBR helmets prior to deployment. Additionally, sailors assigned as
crewmen on NCW patrol craft use the Gentex Tactical Communications
Helmet (TCH) and during boat missions, crewmen wear the TCH. Crewmen
are issued the RBR helmet as part of their personal protective
equipment. When on other missions, they wear the RBR. Non-crewmembers
wear their individual helmets when embarked on a patrol craft.
Explosive ordnance Disposal personnel, Riverine Group personnel and
Navy Individual Augmentees are issued the Modular Integrated
Communications Helmet/Advanced Combat Helmet.
Naval Construction Force (Seabees) personnel and Naval
Expeditionary Logistic Support Group personnel are issued the PASGT
helmet.
Mr. Weldon. Does the Navy currently have its own combat helmet
development program? Is the Navy evaluating the new Army or Marine
Corps helmet?
Mr. Smith. The Navy does not develop tactical ballistic helmets for
ground troops. The Navy develops helmets for specific Navy requirements
to include maritime aircrews, boat crews, flight deck personnel, etc.
However, the Navy follows the Marine Corps and Army efforts for all
ground combat equipment, including helmets.
Naval Coastal Warfare (NCW) personnel have had the opportunity to
examine and consider the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH). Their RBR helmet
is very close in performance, weight and comfort to the ACH. NCW
personnel have not evaluated the Marine Corps lightweight helmet.
Mr. Weldon. How do deploying expeditionary sailors in OIF and OEF
who are assigned ground force missions such as convoy security
protection receive their personnel protective equipment?
Mr. Smith. Naval Construction Force Seabees are issued their
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (combat helmet, body armor,
ballistic eyewear, gas mask/canisters, etc.) in homeport prior to
deploying in support of OIF/OEF. Due to limited availability of
Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts (ESAPI), personnel are issued
standard SAPI plates in homeport. Personnel deploying in support of OIF
swap out their issued SAPI plates for ESAPI plates (based on
availability) during Reception, Staging, Onward-movement & Integration.
Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST) suits are
also issued in Theater; however, there is sufficient stock on hand to
issue prior to deployment if needed.
Naval Coastal Warfare (NCW) personnel are issued their PPE in the
same manner as Seabees with the exception of SAPI. NCW personnel are
currently issued improved SAPI plates and do not swap them for ESAPI
plates upon arrival in Theater.
Riverine Squadrons (RIVRON) have not yet begun to issue PPE to
RIVRON personnel. PPE issue will take place at the unit prior to
deployment of personnel. RIVRON personnel will be issued the Tactical
Maritime Body Armor System manufactured by KDH Defense Systems, Inc.
which includes floatation/buoyancy capabilities. Riverine Group has
received funding to purchase ESAPI plates as well as neck, shoulder and
groin protection and is currently working procurement.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel are issued all PPE
(including JSLIST suits) prior to deployment. EOD personnel are
currently issued the Combat Integrated Releasable Armor System with
ESAPI plates.
Expeditionary Logistics Support Group (ELSG) personnel are issued
their PPE as soon as they report aboard the command. Personnel were
previously issued their JSLIST suits in Theater. However, the process
is being changed to facilitate issue prior to deployment. All ELSG
personnel are issued SAPI plates. If they are required to move into the
MEF AO in support of OIF, their SAPI plates are swapped for ESAPI
plates. Upon return to Kuwait, the plates are swapped back to ensure
availability of ESAPIs for follow-on personnel moving north.
Navy Individual Augmentees (IAs) are issued all PPE (including
JSLIST suits) prior to beginning their training phase at various Army
bases throughout the U.S. The Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center is
working to identify a single site to process and train IAs. If Fort Dix
is chosen as the single site, Navy will provide funding for the Army to
continue to train and equip IAs. If Norfolk is chosen, IA personnel
would be equipped at Norfolk and trained at one of several Army bases.
Mr. Weldon. Is the Navy pursuing any research and development
programs with respect to armor technology?
Mr. Smith. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is actively involved
in the development of improved, lightweight vehicle armor systems to
enhance the survivability of the warfighter. The program supports the
Department of the Navy (Navy & Marine Corps). These initiatives
include: the development of hybrid materials for enhanced ballistic
performance; advanced lightweight electromagnetic armor for protection
against RPGs, anti-tank missiles, and land mines; and explosive
resistant coatings.
While the focus of the Department of the Navy technology efforts is
on craft protection, based upon Urgent Universal Needs Statement (UUNS)
from Marine commanders in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation
Enduring Freedom (OEF) ONR has been pursuing a number of body armor
technologies resulting from combat operations in Iraq. Recognizing the
UUNS, Congress added $3M in FY 2006 funding for Protective Apparel
Technology Systems. This effort is to develop new light weight personal
armor materials, cooling technology for personal armor systems,
advanced instrumented test surrogates to assess personal armor
performance against blast pressure and ballistic injuries to the
warfighter leading to new, deliverable personal armor systems. The
Marine Advanced Combat Helmet System Initiative is also examining
technologies to incrementally improve the Marine Corps helmet as well
as to support the design of the next generation helmet as an integrated
component of an advanced infantry system.
Mr. Weldon. Do you have any outstanding unfunded body armor
requirements?
Mr. Smith. No. There are no unfunded requirements for NECC.
Mr. Weldon. Do the armor plates used by Naval Coastal Warfare
squadrons provide the same level of ballistic protection as ESAPI armor
plates? Are these plates lighter than ESAPI?
Mr. Smith. Naval Coastal Warfare is procuring and outfitting
personnel with ISAPI plates which offer Level III+ protection with and
outer ballistic vest while ESAPI provides level IV protection with
outer ballistic vest. An analysis is being conducted to determine
whether or not current requirements meet conditions to upgrade from
ISAPI plates to ESAPI.
The ISAPI plates weigh approximately 3/4 lb LESS than ESAPI per
plate or 1.5 lbs a set.
Note: ISAPI versus ESAPI
ISAPI--is the improved SAPI plate, which added the capability of the
plate to take 6 to 10 more shots per plate. It will stop up to 3 BZ
rounds (7.62/39API) armor piercing rounds. These rounds are the most
commonly used in subject AOR.
ESAPI--is the enhance revision of the ISAPI, which will stop a sniper
round, M-2 Bullets (7.62/54). This is a round that has been recently
used in Afghanistan and Iraq by snipers.
Mr. Weldon. The subcommittee understands that the Army, from the
onset of its new combat helmet program until 2005, had utilized a sole
source to provide pad suspension kits. In 2005 the Army decided to
modify its testing requirements in measuring impact protection going
from single peak point assessments on each of the 14 impact points to
taking the average of the required 14 peak point impact tests.
Why did the Army modify its testing requirements from single points
to taking the average? Would this not make the requirements less
stringent?
General Speakes. The Army has not changed the test procedure for
measuring impact protection of the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH). The
test procedure used is Federal Motor Vehicles Safety Standard 218
(FMVSS 218) for motorcycle helmets modified for the specific needs for
impact site, test temperature and subsequent impacts. FMVSS 218
describes the test fixture, head forms and impact surfaces as well as
calls out the data collection standard, which is Society of Automotive
Engineers Standard J211. As part of the test procedure, we look at each
single peak impact at all 14 data points as well as the average of
impacts across all 14 points. The ACH is required and capable of
meeting an average of 150 G's across the helmet, with no single impact
in excess of 300 G's over temperatures ranging from cold to extreme
hot.
Mr. Weldon. How many vendors were used after the test modification?
How many vendors are currently providing pad suspension kits to the
Army?
General Speakes. As mentioned above, the Army has used only one
test procedure. The helmet pads are manufactured to Advanced Combat
Helmet (ACH) performance specifications by the National Industries for
the Blind (NIB) as a mandatory-sourced item through the Javits-Wagner
O'Day program. NIB can use any qualified vendor's material for the pad
system, and currently three manufacturers are qualified: Oregon-Aero
(Scappoose, OR), Brock USA (Boulder, CO) and Team Wendy (Cleveland,
OH). Additionally, the Army is testing a fourth manufacturer's pad
material, Skydex (Centennial, CO), to determine if the manufacturer is
capable of meeting the ACH performance requirements.
Mr. Weldon. What are the differences in these pad suspension kits?
General Speakes. While there may be slight differences, all pad
suspension systems meet ACH performance specifications.
Mr. Weldon. How do these new pad suspension kits compare to the
original pad suspension kit used? Was there a field user evaluation?
General Speakes. All pad suspension systems meet the ACH
performance requirements. The qualification process for each vendor
included a user evaluation to ensure proper fit, comfort, and
stability.
Mr. Weldon. Please provide the testing criteria, assumptions,
standards and results of all pad suspension systems that have been used
in the Army's combat helmet or have been qualified for use in the
Army's Combat Helmet.
General Speakes. Due to the operational sensitivity of the material
requested, we are providing the information under separate cover to the
committee.
Mr. Weldon. The Marines indicate the Army's helmet covers 15
percent less area around the head than the Marine Corps helmet. Have
you received any feedback from Soldiers indicating that this is a
problem? Any increased instances of injury? What are some of the
benefits of the less area coverage?
General Speakes. The Army recently completed a study comparing the
ACH and the Marine Corps Lightweight Helmet to the Personal Armor
System, Ground Troops (PASGT), pronounced ``Pass-get'', helmet which
has the same area of coverage as the Marine Corps helmet. The study
reports that the ACH actually provides 8 percent less coverage, not 15
percent, and was superior to the PASGT helmet based upon the study
criteria. We are providing the committee with a copy of this report
under separate cover. Additionally, while the ACH has less area of
coverage, it provides better situational awareness to the Soldier due
to such factors as increased field of vision and improved sound
localization.
Mr. Weldon. What type of injuries are we seeing in Theater as being
most prevalent? How do you measure or track these injuries?
General Speakes. The primary reason for evacuation from Theater
remains disease and non-battle injuries. For combat wounds, the top
categories of injuries are to the arms, ear, legs, hands, head and
face, as a result of explosions, gunshot wounds, rocket-propelled
grenades, mortars and vehicle bombings. Medical authorities and
equipment developers receive information on injury type and mechanism
of injury from several sources. Every Soldier who dies in Theater
undergoes a full forensic autopsy to determine cause of death and to
identify opportunities to improve protective equipment and to modify
tactics, techniques, and procedures. Over the past year, the Army has
developed a Joint Theater Trauma Registry. The Trauma Registry provides
a summary of injuries, mechanism of injury, protective equipment worn,
and medical care provided. Both of these systems have helped improve
Soldier equipment, change tactics and procedures, and modify medical
doctrine in response to new threats on the battlefield. Most notably,
autopsy information led to the fielding of the Deltoid Auxiliary
Protector, which protects the upper arm and under arm area.
Mr. Weldon. How are Soldiers issued their combat helmets? Will all
deploy with the most advanced configuration?
General Speakes. Soldiers are issued their helmets through the
Rapid Fielding Initiative fielding teams from Program Executive Office-
Soldier prior to deployment. Soldiers' heads are measured to ensure
proper sizing, and they are taught the best methods for adjusting the
pad suspension system in the ACH to ensure a proper fit of the helmet.
Mr. Weldon. Please tell us some of the feedback you are receiving
from Theater from troops wearing these current helmets and their
respective suspension systems?
General Speakes. Post-Combat Surveys and Soldier Feedback show the
ACH to be very popular with Soldiers. Soldiers appreciate the reduced
weight, increased field of view and improved sound localization while
wearing the helmet, and the improved ability to maneuver and fire from
the prone position.
Mr. Weldon. What are the average impact protection levels of each
of your helmet suspension systems? Please explain what that means in
terms of protection from blunt trauma to the head.
General Speakes. Each pad suspension system meets the requirement
of 150 G's average and no single impact greater than 300 G's. These
performance requirements are based on the capability of the original
manufacturer's helmet pad suspension system in the ACH. A force of 300-
400 G's applied to the head is generally considered lethal. A force of
150 G's applied to the head is generally considered equivalent to a
concussion.
Mr. Weldon. To your knowledge has there been a side-by-side test
comparing the impact protection provided by the Army's helmet with
original pad suspension kit and that of the Marine Corps helmet using
the upgraded sling suspension kit using the same metrics? If so what
were the results?
General Speakes. Yes. In October 2004, the Vice Chief of Staff of
the Army directed the U.S. Army Infantry Center (USAIC) to conduct a
holistic review of requirements and materiel solution performance of
Soldier ``combat'' head protection. The study team focused primarily on
the differences between the ACH and the Personal Armor System, Ground
Troops (PASGT) helmet to recommend the best ground combat helmet to
wear under all ``Mission, Enemy, Terrain and Weather, Time, Troops
Available, and Civilians'', or METT-TC, conditions. The USAIC Study
also evaluated the Marine Corps Lightweight Helmet. We are providing
the committee with a copy of this report under separate cover.
Mr. Weldon. Please describe the current condition of the body armor
industrial base?
General Speakes. Industry has been responsive to meeting our
current needs. We know of no impediments in our industrial base that
would preclude the Services from meeting any new requirements. The Army
has contracts with:
--6 Enhanced-Small Arms Protective Insert vendors: Ceradyne
(Costa Mesa, CA), BAE (Formally CERCOM, Vista, CA), Simula (Phoenix,
AZ), Armor Works (Tempe, AZ), Protective Materials (Miami Lakes, FL),
Armacel Armor (Camarillo, CA);
--1 Outer Tactical Vest vendor: Point Blank Body Armor (Deerfield
Beach, FL);
--1 Deltoid and Auxiliary Protector vendor: Point Blank Body
Armor (Deerfield Beach, FL); and
--2 Enhanced Side Ballistic Insert vendor: Ceradyne (Costa Mesa,
CA) and Armor Works (Tempe, AZ).
Mr. Weldon. Are there any production or material constraints such
as supply of ceramic tiles?
General Speakes. No.
Mr. Weldon. Do you have any outstanding unfunded body armor
requirements?
General Speakes. Yes, the Army has a $1.23 billion body armor
funding requirement in fiscal year 2007.
Mr. Weldon. Please describe the current efforts being pursued for
the next advancement in body armor?
Can you describe some of the solutions you are currently reviewing?
General Speakes. The Army is focusing on improving Interceptor Body
Armor (IBA) functionality. The Outer Tactical Vest will be redesigned
to incorporate: better fighting load carriage distribution; Enhanced
Side Ballistic Insert integration; and fast access to an injured
Soldier's front and rear torso area by medical personnel or first
responders providing battle field first aid.
Mr. Weldon. How quickly could the ``system'' evaluate and then
incorporate new body armor developments?
General Speakes. That would depend on a number of factors. First,
does it meet our ballistic requirements? Are the factors of form, fit
and function the same or similar to what we are using now? Can the
vendor meet production needs quickly or is there a ``ramp up'' period
required? For example, when we received the Operational Needs Statement
for Enhanced Side Ballistic Insert in September of 2005, it took only
four months to complete all testing and move into production and one
month after that to deliver the first side plates in Theater by January
2006.
Since the beginning of the war, the Army has made seven major
improvements to IBA. We continually query industry for innovative ideas
to improve IBA, and each alternative must be thoroughly tested to
insure it meets operational suitability before it is fielded to
Soldiers.
The most recent improvement to the IBA ensemble is the Enhanced
Side Ballistic Insert (ESBI). In September 2005, the Army approved a
U.S. Central Command Operational Needs Statement for increased body
armor protection based on the changing threat. The Army immediately
began developing, testing, and evaluating side plates. The IBA side
plate procurement started in January 2006 and ramped to 30,000 sets per
month in June 2006. As of July 14, 2006, the Army has procured over
95,000 ESBI sets and will meet the Theater requirement of 201,000 sets
by December 2006. The side plates have the same ballistic
characteristics as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts and
provide increased ballistic protection for the Soldier. The side plate
is fielded as a complete system: a ballistic plate with a specially
designed pouch that is affixed to each side of the Outer Tactical Vest.
Mr. Weldon. What is the status of the Enhanced Side Ballistic
Insert program? When do you expect completion of the Theater
requirement?
General Speakes. Enhanced Side Ballistic Insert is currently in
production and being fielded to Theater, with an expected completion
date of December 2006.
Mr. Weldon. How many vendors are currently producing Enhanced Small
Arms Protective Inserts and Enhanced Side Ballistic Inserts?
General Speakes. Currently there are:
--6 Enhanced-Small Arms Protective Insert vendors: Ceradyne
(Costa Mesa, CA), BAE (Formally CERCOM, Vista, CA), Simula (Phoenix,
AZ), Armor Works (Tempe, AZ), Protective Materials (Miami Lakes, FL),
Armacell (Camarillo, CA); and
--2 Enhanced Side Ballistic Insert vendor: Ceradyne (Costa Mesa,
CA) and Armor Works (Tempe, AZ).
Mr. Weldon. On average how many body annoy solutions would you say
you have tested and evaluated?
General Speakes. The Army's Project Manager for Soldier Equipment
has evaluated over 30 submissions from industry over the last 40 months
resulting in seven improvements to the Interceptor Body Armor system.
Mr. Weldon. What is the policy for armored vehicles leaving Forward
Operating Bases (FOBs)? Are only vehicles with Level II and above armor
allowed to go outside the wire?
General Speakes. Current policy, found in FRAGO no. 77, dated
December 20, 2005, is that effective January 1, 2006, any vehicle
departing the safety of the FOB must have at least Level II armor.
Multi National Corps-Iraq issued a policy memorandum on June 25, 2006,
in which General George W. Casey, commanding general, Multinational
Forces-Iraq, highly encouraged his subordinate commanders to issue
their own policy to restrict combat patrols to Up-Armored High Mobility
Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles (UAH-M1114/1151), Armored Security
Vehicles (ASV-M1117) and Marine Armor Kits (M1043 and M1045) kitted
vehicles when their units reach 85 percent fill of their required
vehicles. In essence, this means that only Level I vehicles may depart
the FOB for units with 85 percent vehicle issue. This tightening of the
vehicle policy is possible because the Army has continued to improve
the survivability of the vehicle platforms to ensure that vehicles
operating off the FOB have the highest possible level of protection.
Mr. Weldon. What's the status of armoring turrets and hatches on
vehicles? We've seen a lot of ``Level III'' armor solutions that look
pretty effective (e.g. ``pope glass''). What's the ``system'' doing to
help this effort or provide even better armor?
There were several turret armor designs under test and evaluation
several months ago, what happened to these?
General Speakes. The Army continues to make progress on the
Enhanced Gunner Protection Kit (GPK). To provide an enhanced capability
quickly, the Project Manager (PM) delivered 1,000 commercially
available Transparent Armor Gunshields that allow gunners to remain
behind armor while still having frontal visibility. As of July 6, 2006,
975 initial kits are installed. As additional 800 Marine Corps
Transparent Armor Gunshields were purchased, and the 125 kits have been
shipped. Production is projected for completion in August 2006.
Currently, the Army is updating the Government-owned Technical Data
Package a successful user evaluation on the Objective GPK, was
concluded in late June 2006. Production is scheduled to start in
September 2006.
Mr. Weldon. Is the armor for the M1151/M1152 Up-Armored High
Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV) the same as the M1114
Up-Armor HMMWV? (My understanding is that the answer is YES).
How quickly can the ``system'' evaluate and then incorporate new
vehicle armor advancements?
General Speakes. Although some material compositions for the armor
package differ, the M1151, M1152, and M1165 provide an equivalent or
greater protection as the M1114. The significant advantage to the
M1151, M1152, and M1165 is the flexibility to add or remove the armor
based on mission, threat and technology. The M1114 armor cannot be
removed. It normally takes 2-3 months to design, test and start
production; a more complex design can take at least 6 months.
Mr. Weldon. Are there any definite trends or indications that
troops are having more vehicle accidents (e.g. roll-overs) because they
have not had training on the armored vehicles before deploying?
If we are seeing more instances of accidents and roll-overs, would
you agree that combat helmets should provide the best level of blunt
impact protection?
General Speakes. The U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center has not
identified training deficiency as a primary factor in roll-over
accidents. However, operational reports from Theater reveal that most
accidents occur during the first few months after a unit has arrived in
Theater, indicating that driver proficiency is an accident factor. The
Army has provided limited Add-on Armor (AoA) kits and M1114 Level I
HMMWVs as training sets for use in training Soldiers in the driving of
armored Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (TWVs) prior to deployment. Further,
drivers are provided additional training concerning driving armored
TWVs in Kuwait before ``crossing the berm'' into Iraq and on the HMMWV
Egress Assistance Trainer (HEAT), which simulates a vehicle roll-over.
In regard to your second question, the combat helmet together with the
seat restraint are the primary items of equipment which provide
protection to Soldiers in roll-over accidents.
Mr. Weldon. Question. What is the status of the industrial base in
meeting new vehicle armor requirements?
General Speakes. Industry has been responsive to meeting our
current needs. We know of no impediments in our industrial base that
would preclude the Services from meeting any new armor requirements. In
fact, the competitive bidding process in our Future Tactical Truck
System Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration brought new companies
such as Lockheed Martin into the process, as well as our traditional
industrial partners.
Mr. Weldon. When does the Army expect to reach maximum monthly
level of production for the Up-Armored HMMWV (UAH)?
General Speakes. The Army has been working closely with the UAH
manufacturer to ensure the production meets the requirements of all UAH
customers. In May 2006, the manufacturers produced 988 vehicles and
1,074 vehicles in June, and the forecast is for over 900 vehicles to be
delivered during each month of July and August 2006.
Mr. Weldon. I understand there is a HMMWV Egress Assistance Trainer
(HEAT) operating in Theater that helps simulate a vehicle roll-over and
helps the gunner train in exiting the vehicle in such a situation.
Are you aware of this program? And what's the status of this
program? Are there plans to provide more trainers here in the
continental United States?
General Speakes. Yes, there are currently three HEAT trainers being
used in Theater, and Theater requires a total of 31 trainers. The
Aberdeen Test and Evaluation Center (ATEC) was in Theater in late June
2006 to perform operational testing, and safety certification is
pending. No formal test report has been issued but indications are that
there are no significant problems with the trainer. There is also an
effort ongoing to address the number of HEAT trainers needed for
training in the U.S. The Army Training Support Center is leading the
team with all concerned Army organizations to evaluate this issue. The
team expects to publish a final report showing the requirement for
trainers for the continental U.S. forces by July 31, 2006.
Mr. Weldon. Can you briefly describe your long term vehicle
armoring strategy/initiative?
General Speakes. The Long Term Armoring Strategy (LTAS) is the
objective armor solution for the Armor Tactical Wheeled Vehicle fleet.
The objective requirement for LTAS is to develop an armored solution
for vehicles that can be tailored for the mission. This is accomplished
by means of ``A'' and ``B'' Kits. The ``A'' Kit is installed on the
vehicle as a part of the vehicle manufacturing process. This kit is
integrated into the vehicle and cannot be removed. It provides the
superstructure onto which the ``B'' Kit armor can be installed and
armor for hard-to-armor portions of the vehicle, such as the
undercarriage. The ``B'' kit is the removable armor panels which give
the vehicle the same level of protection as the M1114 UAH.
Mr. Weldon. What steps are being taken to fix the current gaps in
fielding from the US to Afghanistan and Iraq? What is the timeline for
full fielding of hemostatic agents?
General Speakes. The delivery schedule for the HemCon chitosan
dressings was accelerated to field 120,000 dressings from June 2006 to
November 2006. Additionally, 159,000 substitute hemostatic dressings
(QuikClot) will be delivered between June and August 2006 to augment
the HemCon bandage fielding. The HemCon chitosan dressings will be
fielded according to the Army policy of 5:3:1 (5 per medic, 3 per
combat lifesaver, and 1 per Soldier) by November 2006.
Mr. Weldon. Is it true that even though the Army's policy since
last year is for every Soldier to have a hemostatic agent, only medics
and combat lifesavers have them today?
General Speakes. Although it is true that currently not every
Soldier has a HemCon chitosan dressing, it is untrue to state that only
medics and combat lifesavers have them. Army policy establishes a
requirement that every Combat Medic carry 5 bandages, every Combat
Lifesaver carry 3 bandages, and every Soldier carry 1 bandage. Until
fielding was complete, Army policy allowed every Combat Medic to be
issued 3 bandages until sufficient stocks were available to meet the
5:3:1 fielding plan. The current Theater requirement is calculated at
181,000 HemCon chitosan dressings. Over 110,000 are presently in the
hands of Soldiers, medics, and combat lifesavers within the Central
Command Area of Operations which includes both Iraq and Afghanistan. In
addition, the 159,000 QuikClot dressings in Theater provide a
hemostatic product for trained medical personnel to use until the
HemCon chitosan dressings are available for all Soldiers, medics, and
combat lifesavers.
Mr. Weldon. Once hemostatic agents are shipped to Theater, how are
they accounted for? Who tracks their unit fielding? Who tracks usage
and replacement requirements? How are these communicated up the chain
of command, starting at the lowest levels?
General Speakes. Hemostatic agents are ``pushed'' to the units in
Theater to facilitate initial fielding. The fielding plan is developed
by the respective Theater commands, with the priority going to units
and Soldiers in direct combat. The hemostatic bandage is classified as
an expendable item because it is consumed in use. As such, it is not
formally tracked or accounted for as other pieces of equipment are.
Bandages are requisitioned through routine medical supply channels when
replacement items are required. In June 2006, the Headquarters
Department of the Army issued a clarifying message on the subject of
Theater Provided Equipment. The hemostatic bandage was identified as an
item to remain in the Theater which requires units to leave these items
behind in Theater. This requirement has been emphasized with senior
supply officers and deputy commanders in Theater. Theater is developing
a policy whereby all hemostatic bandages will be turned in to forward
medical supply points prior to a unit rotating out. All bandages will
then be inspected for serviceability and expiration dates before being
reissued to a new unit. Any shortfalls due to usage, damage or
expiration will be replaced through medical supply systems.
Mr. Weldon. Is there a long-term fielding plan, and if so, will
arterial coagulants be included in the annual budget request in coming
years?
General Speakes. Yes. The current fielding plan calls for
distribution of 120,000 more dressings between June 2006 and November
2006 to meet the initial HemCon fielding requirement. After the initial
requirement is met in November 2006, Theater and the Army will decide
whether a separate sustainment contract or prime vendor distribution
based on unit requirements and stockage inventory will meet Army
sustainment requirements. This sustainment requirement will part of the
annual Operation and Maintenance budget request.
Other potential arterial coagulants are in various stages of
development, testing and Federal Drug Administration approval, both
internally and externally to the Department of Defense.
Mr. Weldon. The Army recently executed a contract for $2.25 million
of QuikClot. What is the fielding plan for that procurement, including
timeline?
General Speakes. A quantity of 155,000 QuikClot bandages are
scheduled for delivery to the Theater between June and August 2006. To
date, 80,000 of these bandages have arrived in Theater. These bandages
will be fielded through routine medical supply channels until the
HemCon bandage requirement is fully met.
Mr. Weldon. What types of helmets are issued to expeditionary
airmen?
General McCoy. The Air Force currently issues the Personnel Armor
System for Ground Troops (PASGT) to most expeditionary Airmen. There
are specialties (security forces, EOD, some civil engineers) that
satisfy their unique requirements with the Advanced Combat Helmet
(ACH). In addition, our Airmen performing in-lieu-of (ILO) duties with
the US Army are issued the ACH as well. The Air Force recently made the
decision to ensure our Airmen in the AOR are outfitted with the best
protective equipment available and resourced 23,200 ACHs and 5,000
ballistic liner suspension system (padded) inserts for the existing
PASGT helmets. The ACHs and new padded helmet inserts are earmarked for
issue to our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the USCENTCOM
AOR.
Mr. Weldon. Has the Air Force considered adopting either the Army
or Marine Corps helmets as its primary helmet for expeditionary airmen
performing ground force missions?
General McCoy. Yes, certain disciplines have already transitioned
to the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) to satisfy unique mission
requirements. Moreover, the Air Force has purchased 23,200 ACHs and
5,000 ballistic liner suspension systems for existing PASGT helmets for
expeditionary Airmen in the USCENTCOM AOR. Future plans are under
consideration and may require a replacement/fielding initiative to our
current standard helmet. At that time, consideration will be given to
fielding the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) and/or Lightweight Combat
Helmet (LWCH) across the broader Air Force.
Mr. Weldon. What type of helmet is issued to Air Force Security
personnel?
General McCoy. Air Force Security Forces issues the Advanced Combat
Helmet (ACH) to its personnel with the Marine Corps GENTEX Light Weight
Helmet as a suitable substitute. Our security forces personnel adopted
the ACH as a standard issue helmet, because the new helmet offered
better ballistic protection, improved field of vision and increased
maneuverability and firing capability. Additionally, based on studies
conducted by the US Army, the ACH reduced blunt force trauma due to the
improved suspension system the new helmet provided.
Mr. Weldon. How do deployed expeditionary airmen in OIF and OEF who
are assigned ground force missions such as convoy security receive
their personnel protection equipment?
General McCoy. Personnel assigned to ground force convoy missions
are required to deploy with Individual Protective Equipment (IPE)
issued to them from home station. Personnel tasked to deploy with in-
lieu-of (ILO) forces, performing ground force missions, are provided
their full compliment of IPE by the Army, which includes the Advanced
Combat Helmet (ACH). Organizations deploying Battlefield Airmen, such
as the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), outfit their personnel with
IPE specifically tailored to their unique combat mission.
Mr. Weldon. Is the Air Force pursuing any research and development
programs with respect to armor technology?
General McCoy. Yes. The Air Force is engaged in researching armor
technologies for vehicles and individual protective equipment. The Air
Force Protection Battlelab and the Air Force Research Laboratory are
the primary sources for force protection R&D initiatives. Our armor
technology modernization efforts are funded through research
development funding (3600 funding).
Mr. Weldon. Do you have any outstanding unfunded body armor
requirements?
General McCoy. Yes. GWOT requests were submitted for $106M to
support shortfalls for the Air Reserve Components and to replace
equipment for warfighters in-theater due to the increasing
technological advances of protective equipment (e.g. armor piercing
protection & shoulder protection).
The Air Force has purchased 23,200 Advanced Combat Helmets (ACHs)
and 5,000 ballistic liners for inclusion in the PASGT helmet.
Additionally, pending a decision to adopt the ACH or variant helmet as
the standard for combat airmen, the Air Force would require $53M in
additional funding to support the initiative.
Mr. Weldon. What type of injuries are we seeing in theater as being
most prevalent? How do you measure or track these injuries?
General Catto. The Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) Technical
Report 06-01, ``HEAD, FACE AND NECK INJURIES DURING OPERATION IRAQI
FREEDOM II: RESULTS FROM THE U.S. NAVY-MARINE CORPS COMBAT TRAUMA
REQISTRY'' revealed that 75% of all casualties in the study had head,
face or neck injuries resulting from battle injuries (Improvised
Explosive Devices (IEDs), mortars, gunshot wounds) and 25% had non-
battle injuries (motor vehicle crashes, blunt traumas, recreation/
training). The NHRC's Combat Trauma Registry records, tracks, and
monitors all injuries for service personnel treated in the Marine
Corps' area of operations in Iraq.
Mr. Weldon. How are Marines issued their combat helmets? Will all
deploy with the most advanced configuration?
General Catto. Active Duty Marines are issued their combat helmet
from their supporting Consolidated Issue Facility (CIF). Reserve
Marines draw their Lightweight Helmet (LWH) from either the Critical
Asset Rapid Distribution Facility (which supports all Marine Forces
Reserve (MARFORRES) units) or the gaining Marine Expeditionary Force
(MEF). The LWH is an individual issue item. There are sufficient
numbers of the LWH available to provide all deploying Marines with the
most advanced version of the Marine Corps' combat helmet.
Mr. Weldon. Please tell us some of the feedback you are receiving
from theater from troops wearing these current helmets and their
respective suspension systems?
General Catto. We are getting mixed feedback from Marines in
theater concerning their experience with either the sling or pad
suspension system. The issue of which system provides the best level of
comfort is an individual choice. Recent comments submitted by a Chief
Warrant Officer in theater (fourth deployment since 2003) reflect our
concern about the human factors aspects of the pad suspension system.
His unit is 50/50 split on which suspension system is preferred.
Negative comments about the pad suspension system (Oregon Aero) used by
his Marines include heat retention, lack of air circulation, pads
getting filthy very quickly (particularly if you sweat a lot), ripping
easily, and fine sand causing velcro tabs and pads to fall out.
Mr. Weldon. What were some of the reasons for the Marine Corps's
decision in choosing an upgraded sling suspension kit versus going with
a pad suspension kit? Please briefly discuss the analysis of
alternatives used for the combat helmet program?
General Catto. The Lightweight Helmet (LWH) Operational
Requirements Document (ORD) required the procurement of a reduced
weight Personal Armor System Ground Troops (PASGT) helmet. At the time
of development and contract award, no pad suspension system was
offered. Later, during a limited user evaluation in Nov. 2002, Marines
indicated a preference for the LWH sling suspension system over the pad
suspension system that was tested. Because there was no compelling
reason to slow the LWH procurement and adopt a pad suspension system,
the Marine Corps chose to remain with the sling suspension system.
Mr. Weldon. What are the average impact protection levels of the
sling suspension system? Please explain what that means in terms of
protection from blunt trauma to the head?
General Catto. The Lightweight Helmet (LWH) Operational
Requirements Document (ORD) allows for a 150G (Objective) and 200G
(threshold) peak acceleration at an 8 feet per second fall rate, which
is roughly equivalent to an individual hitting their head on the ground
after tripping and falling. The LWH with sling suspension easily meets
these requirements with an average impact load of 157G at 8 feet per
sec.
Mr. Weldon. What are the impact protection test requirements of the
Lightweight Combat Helmet? At what velocity are impact protection tests
performed? For example 8 feet per second, 10 feet per second? The Army
uses 10 feet per second as its standard. Why do the Marines use 8 feet
per second? Does this make the impact protection requirement easier to
achieve?
General Catto. The Lightweight Helmet (LWH) Operational
Requirements Document (ORD) allows for a 150G (Objective) and 200G
(threshold) peak acceleration at an 8 foot per second fall rate, which
is roughly equivalent to an individual hitting their head on the ground
after tripping and falling. The 8 feet per second impact testing
requirement was the approximate injury threshold for the Personal Armor
System Ground Troops (PASGT) helmet which the LWH replaced. This has
been the standard measure for the last two generations of Marine Combat
helmets.
Mr. Weldon. To your knowledge has there been a side-by-side test
comparing the impact protection provided by the Army's helmet with
original pad suspension kit and that of the Marine Corps helmet using
the upgraded sling suspension kit using the same metrics? If so what
were the results?
General Catto. The Office of the Secretary of Defense is currently
conducting side-by-side impact testing of the Army's Advanced Combat
Helmet (ACH) and the US Marine Corps Lightweight Helmet (LWH) at the US
Army Aeronautical Research Lab. This is the first deliberate,
simultaneous comparative testing of these two systems by one lab. A
comparison of separate ballistic impact testing previously conducted
for these two systems shows a slight advantage for the LWH helmet over
the ACH.
Mr. Weldon. Has the Marine Corps conducted side-by-side ballistic
testing of the Marine Corps Lightweight Helmet with a sling suspension
and one with a pad suspension? If so, what were the results?
General Catto. Recent ballistic testing funded by the Marine Corps
at the University of Virginia showed that there is no statistical
difference between the performances of sling or pad suspension systems
in protecting the head from ballistic impacts. Preliminary results
suggest the suspension system plays no role in mitigating force
transmission to the skull.
Mr. Weldon. Are you aware of any test data that demonstrates
ballistic performance degradation of combat helmets that utilize pad
suspension kits?
General Catto. The Office of the Secretary of Defense is sponsoring
a study at the US Army Aeronautical Research Lab to determine pad
degradation at cold, ambient and hot temperatures. Currently, we are
not aware of any other work that has been done to measure the potential
degradation of ballistic performance in pad systems.
Mr. Weldon. Please briefly describe the ongoing experiment being
conducted at University of Virginia (UVA) regarding the testing,
modeling, and simulation of combat helmets and suspensions systems?
What is this study trying to accomplish? Will this study also measure
non-ballistic impacts such as riding in a pitching combat vehicle or
other forms of blunt trauma to the head?
General Catto. The initial Marine Corps funded study at the
University of Virginia sought to determine if a difference exists in
the ballistic response of the helmet suspensions in terms of force
transmitted to the head. Preliminary results suggest the suspension
system plays no role in mitigating force transmission to the skull.
This study has been expanded to examine the effects of non-ballistic.
Mr. Weldon. The acting medical officer of the Marine Corps in April
2005 recommended additional assessment of the ability of the BLSS to
protect against ballistic threats and recommended that the manufacturer
of the BLSS conduct this testing and forward the data to Marine Corps
Systems Command for further review. Did you or anyone at Systems
Command ask the BLSS manufacturer to conduct these tests? Do you know
if the BLSS manufacturer conducted these tests? Was the data reported
back to Marine Corps Systems Command?
General Catto. Oregon Aero, the BLSS manufacturer, has not provided
any ballistic impact test results to the Marine Corps Systems Command.
A formal request was submitted to Oregon Aero by MajGen W.D. Catto on
19 June 2006 asking for any test data concerning protection from
ballistic and blast events. To date, no test data has been provided nor
is there any indication that this testing has been conducted by the
manufacturer.
Mr. Weldon. Please describe the current condition of the body armor
industrial base? Are there any production or material constraints such
as supply of ceramic tiles?
General Catto. The body armor industrial base is robust, with a
number of large and small businesses capable of providing ceramic
plates. There are no material constraints at this time.
Mr. Weldon. Do you have any outstanding unfunded body armor
requirements?
General Catto. No. All body armor requirements have adequate
funding.
Mr. Weldon. Please describe the current efforts being pursued for
the next advancement in body armor? Can you describe some of the
solutions you are currently reviewing? How quickly could the ``system''
evaluate and then incorporate new body armor developments?
General Catto. We are working with a variety of laboratories
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office of Naval Research,
Army Research Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Marine Corps War
fighting Laboratory), utilizing the Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR) program, and with industry in three principal areas--significant
weight reduction, increased area of protection, and protection against
known ballistic threats. We do not foresee any technological advances
in the next 3-5 years that will provide us with a significant reduction
in the weight of ceramic plates or the ability to increase the area of
ballistic plate coverage without adversely impacting flexibility and
mobility. We do anticipate that ceramic plates capable of stopping
emerging threat munitions, such as M993 and M995, will be available in
the next 6-12 months.
Mr. Weldon. What is the status of the enhanced side ballistic
insert program? When do you expect completion of the theater
requirement? How many vendors are currently producing ESAPI and ESBIs?
General Catto. By the end of Apr. 2006, we fielded 28,882 sets of
Side SAPI to the theater. We have 19,618 sets of Side SAPI on order to
support deploying Marine Expeditionary Units. Delivery began in July
2006 and fielding should be completed by Jan. 2007. Additionally, we
have a competitive procurement on the street to procure 90,699 sets of
Side SAPI. Contract award will occur in Sep. 2006 and we anticipate
fielding will be completed within 12 months. Currently, the Marine
Corps has three vendors under contract who supply Enhanced Small Arms
Protective Insert (ESAPI) and Enhanced Side Ballistic Inserts (ESBI)
plates.
Mr. Weldon. On average how many body armor solutions would you say
you have tested and evaluated?
General Catto. Dozens of potential solutions have been evaluated.
Mr. Weldon. What is the Marine Corps acquisition strategy for
procuring enhanced side ballistic inserts and front and back ESAPI
plates?
General Catto. Side Small Arms Protective Inserts (SAPI)--Our
initial procurement of 28,882 sets of Side SAPI plates were to the
Interceptor Small Arms Protective Insert (I-SAPI) specification. The
remaining 2 procurements required Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert
(E-SAPI) plates. We will exchange the Side SAPI plates currently in
theater with E-SAPI specification plates. Front and Back E-SAPI--
Fielding continues. To date, we have fielded nearly 42,000 sets of E-
SAPI plates. We anticipate reaching our Acquisition Objective during
4th Qtr, FY07.
Mr. Weldon. What is the policy for armored vehicles leaving Forward
Operating Bases (FOBs)? Are only vehicles with Level II and above armor
allowed to go outside the wire?
General Catto. Yes, only vehicles with Level II and above armor are
allowed to go outside the wire.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ISRAEL
Mr. Israel. 1. What steps are being taken to fix the current gaps
in fielding from the US to Afghanistan and Iraq? What is the timeline
for full fielding of hemostatic agents?
2. Is it true that even though the Army's policy since last year is
for every soldier to have a hemostatic agent, only medics and combat
lifesavers have them today?
3. Once hemostatic agents are shipped to theater, how are they
accounted for? Who tracks their unit fielding? Who tracks usage and
replacement requirements? How are these requirements communicated up
the chain of command, starting at the lowest levels?
4. Is there a long-term fielding plan, and if so, will arterial
coagulants be included in the annual budget request in coming years?
5. The Army recently executed a contract for $2.25 million of
QuikClot. What is the fielding plan for that procurement, including
timeline?
General Speakes. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Mr. Israel. Why did the Marines conduct an independent study on
Hemostatic agents and what were the results?
General Catto. The Marine Corps conducted a study with the Office
of Naval Research to determine the efficacy of hemostatic agents and to
select the best product. In 2000 when the research began, hemostatic
agent technology was very immature and independent studies to validate
manufacturer's claims were prudent.
The result showed that QuikClot had a 0% mortality rate and that
HemCon had a 28.6% mortality rate.
Mr. Israel. Why did the Marines purchase and field Quikclot?
General Catto. The Marine Corps purchased and fielded QuikClot to
combat deaths on the battlefield from war fighters bleeding to death.
The leading cause of preventable battlefield death since the Civil War
has been blood loss. The Marine Corps was improving the Individual
First Aid Kit (IFAK) and wanted to put a hemostatic dressing in the
kits. As shown in the previous answer, research proved that QuikClot
was the best choice for the war fighter. QuikClot was then fielded in
every IFAK.
Mr. Israel. Can you describe the fielding plan for Quikclot?
General Catto. QuikClot was fielded as a component of the
Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK). The initial IFAKs went out to the
fleet in early FY 2002 and the complete acquisition objective (AO) has
been met as of FY06. The product was also fielded in response to Urgent
Universal Need Statements for Vehicle Medical Kits and Combat Life
Saver bags.
Mr. Israel. Does every Marine in theater (Afghanistan and Iraq)
have Quikclot, and if so, how were they trained in the use of the
Hemostatic agent?
General Catto. The complete Acquisition Objective (AO) has been met
and every Marine in the operating forces has been fielded an Individual
First Aid Kit (IFAK) which contains QuikClot in it. The product has
also been fielded in Vehicle Medical Kits and Combat Life Saver kits.
The training of the product is conducted at the unit level by unit
medical personnel utilizing training IFAKS prior to deployment. The use
of the product is also taught at Marine Corps Recruit Depots as part of
the boot camp training package.
Mr. Israel. Does the USMC intend to purchase and utilize HemCon and
if not, why?
General Catto. The Marine Corps does not have any plans to purchase
HemCon. The product fails to work in field applications 66% percent of
the time and the product costs $98.00 per bandage. QuikClot works 100%
of the time with 0% mortality and costs $9.80 per package.