ONE OF THE RECURRING themes of press coverage of the Long War, and particularly the conflict in Iraq, is that soldiers are victims. According to this trope, soldiers and Marines are sacrificing themselves in a cause already lost, by an administration that cares little for the men and women in uniform. The proof of this last proposition was demonstrated to the media's satisfaction long ago, and confirmed for them in former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's proclamation that we went to war with the force we had rather than the one we'd liked to have.

Exhibit number one in the press's case for the prosecution was the question of armor protection for soldiers--not only armor for trucks and Humvees but individual body armor. Facts have never been allowed to get in the way of these stories--nor have questions about the tradeoffs between mobility and protection --and, if a recent report by NBC's Lisa Myers is any indication, they still aren't. In Myers's report, done in the classic "I-team" TV investigative style, NBC paid for an independent ballistics test comparing something called Dragon Skin body armor (so-called because it is made up of overlapping ceramic discs) with the Interceptor body armor now being worn by soldiers.

Far from being a case of independent investigation, the report smells more like a piece of special pleading. Dragon Skin is made by Pinnacle Body Armor, whose chief executive, Murray Neal, has long complained that the Army has been lying about his product. According to Myers, "In our limited

Employing yet another media-catnip tactic, Neal and his PR team have convinced some concerned parents that there may be something better than what the Army is supplying their children; they in turn have agitated for Congress to intervene. The House Armed Services Committee's once-moderate Democratic chairman Rep. Ike Skelton--whose son is a soldier, and who is apparently competing for the Iraq "oversight" job with more reliably left Rep. Henry Waxman--dutifully responded to the NBC broadcast by holding a hearing on the subject of body armor. Alas, the story soon deviated from the script.

In testimony to the committee, the Air Force related its history with Dragon Skin. While researching flexible body armor, the Air Force purchased some Dragon Skin for evaluation. However, after being notified of Dragon Skin test failures, the Air Force requested a live fire test, which Dragon Skin failed, resulting in a recall of all its Dragon Skin. As it happens, the Army has had a similar experience. It had purchased some Dragon Skin vests for use by its Criminal Investigations Command, but recalled the vests in April 2006, not only because of test failures, but because of false certification claims. Finally, under questioning from the committee's ranking Republican, Duncan Hunter, once an infantryman in Vietnam, one of NBC's "experts," upon hearing of the Army's experience, allowed that Dragon Skin was "not ready for prime time."