Military Must Release Bullet-Wound Records
The Department of Defense failed to show that a veteran's FOIA request for records of soldiers who suffered fatal bullet wounds while wearing body armor would "shock" troops' families, a federal judge ruled.
Retired Marine Corps Capt. Roger Charles is investigating whether U.S. troops were provided inadequate body armor. Charles is editor of Soldiers for the Truth Foundation's online journal Defense Watch.
He submitted a FOIA request to the Pentagon's Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in October 2008, seeking records on bullet wounds to armored troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan between January 2006 and December 2007.
The request was directed to then-Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner Capt. Craig T. Mallak.
By January 30, 2009, the institute had not produced any documents nor estimated of when it might respond. He filed a complaint for injunctive relief in February 2009, alleging violations of the Freedom of Information and Administrative Procedure Acts.
He claimed that troops were "being sent into harm's way with substandard ballistic protection from small arms fire," and that the Pentagon had recalled more than 16,000 sets of body armor.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/04/02/56269.htm