The Army Tries On Bomb-Proof Briefs

In 2010, 259 service members serving in war zones were injured in the genital area. That accounted for almost 13 percent of all hospital admissions from combat that year—a record since the Defense Dept. began counting in 2001. To reduce those numbers, the Pentagon wants to equip soldiers with ballistic briefs that can diminish the damage from improvised explosive devices buried in the ground, the cause of most such injuries. “When you have a 21- or 22-year-old soldier … come in and say, ‘I’m telling my buddies to go to the sperm bank before they go downrange,’ that’s heartbreaking,” says Lieutenant Colonel Frank Lozano, who heads up the U.S. Army’s purchasing of protective gear.

There’s just one hitch: The most effective combat underwear is made of silk, but the military hasn’t found a domestic supplier of it and risks running afoul of a World War II-era law requiring the Defense Dept. to purchase food and uniforms made with domestic raw materials. Congress adopted the measure, known as the Berry Amendment, in 1941 to build up U.S. manufacturing and guarantee the country wouldn’t run out of wartime supplies. Soldiers and Marines battle-tested silk briefs from a British supplier last year under a one-time exemption that military procurement officials sometimes allow for orders placed from a war zone. Because of the restrictions, the Army is now testing underwear containing American-made synthetics such as DuPont’s Kevlar, burning and shooting at the fabrics to see how they hold up under combat conditions.