Florida’s non-staff-driven senator, Bill Nelson, continues to demand better protection for our troops. According to the Palm Beach Post:
Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter Monday to Rumsfeld following reports the Marines last week recalled 5,227 defective vests.
“I am very disappointed to learn that defective body armor was accepted by the Department of Defense and then issued to our Marines in Iraq,” Nelson wrote in his letter.
The Marine Corps defended the decision to use the vest, produced by the Pompano Beach-based Point Blank Body Armor Inc., even though they did not fully meet the specifications for blocking bullets.
Although the vests failed a 9mm standard outlined in the contract, they met a lower 7.62mm standard set by the National Institute of Justice, said Marine Corps Capt. Jeff Landis.
Point Blank Body Armor seems to be the Halliburton of bullet-proof vests, and its leader, David H. Brooks, very like a certain Dick. Between insider stock sales and huge bonuses and “reimbursements,” the Defense Dept. might as well deposit the checks to his personal account. The Miami Herald reported on Point Blanks� parent company, DHB (nice personal touch) in April.
DHB’s stock surged to an all-time high of $22.53 on Dec. 23 after announcing it landed a $190 million contract to supply protective vests to the Army�
Within days of the contract’s announcement, company executives began reporting a boatload of stock sales. The biggest seller was Chairman and Chief Executive David Brooks, who sold almost 9.5 million shares worth $185.9 million in December, according to Bloomberg News�
[Independent analyst Dennis Nielsen] said he was more alarmed by disclosures in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month. Brooks, for instance, took home a $2 million bonus last year, double the figure of 2003 and three times his 2004 salary of $675,000.
�DHB charters a jet owned by Brooks’ children to fly company executives and directors. It paid the company and unrelated vendors more than $850,000 for trips last year. The company also pays Brooks $25,000 a month for the cost of his Florida residence�
Just as the company was about to scare off investors permanently, it launched a new strategy: hire retired military.
Newsday for May 4:
In a move aimed at bolstering its image on Wall Street, protective body armor maker DHB Industries Inc. yesterday named as its new president�Larry Ellis, 58, who retired from the Army 10 months ago after a 35-year career that included combat service in Vietnam and the command of some 14,000 Army troops in Bosnia�
His appointment comes one day after Westbury-based DHB announced it had hired another former high-ranking Army officer, Ishmon F. Burks, as the company’s executive vice president for investor and media relations. Burks was a decorated colonel.
Sounds like someone needs to decide where this company is headquartered. Maybe they�ll follow Halliburton�s lead and pick a nice island in the Caribbean next.
But speaking of calling in former military when you need to appear to have integrity, look who the White House, aka Karl Rove, is thinking of running in the 2006 Florida senate race.
Opinion Journal, made available free by Sayfie Review reports:
“General [Tommy] Franks is rumored to be exploring the political terrain for a possible challenge to Florida’s Democratic Senator Bill Nelson…Though a Franks spokesman recently waved off reporters with a “no comment”�
“The White House may be…convinced that General Franks would win by hitting a political sweet spot of his own: thousands of active and retired military personnel who vote in Florida.”
But former astronaut Nelson continues to defy the Republican pigeonhole of Democrats. A poll reported in the Florida Times-Union, commissioned by the Duval County (Jacksonville) Republican Party in January, shows Nelson looking strong.
The poll was taken as Nelson fought to keep the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, based in Jacksonville, from being scuttled, and gave Nelson a favorability rating of 56 percent. When you consider that Jacksonville is what people mean when they say that in Florida, the further north you go the further south you get, that�s pretty good numbers. No wonder Rove is sweating.