What does $10,000,000 buy? If you're a member of the Brooks family of DHB Industries, who sells bulletproof vests to our Army and Marine Corps, it can buy a big party for daughter Elizabeth's Bat Mitzvah.

Gross enough, spending "ten large" on a kid's party. But even more disgusting is where the money came from.

Travel beyond the fold with me, please.

Thanks to the people at HuffPost, I see this piece in the New York Daily News by gossipper Lloyd Grove:

For his daughter's coming-of-age celebration last weekend, multimillionaire Long Island defense contractor David H. Brooks booked two floors of the Rainbow Room, hauled in concert-ready equipment, built a stage, installed special carpeting, outfitted the space with Jumbotrons and arranged command performances by everyone from 50 Cent to Tom Petty to Aerosmith.

I hear it was garish display of rock 'n' roll idol worship for which the famously irascible CEO of DHB Industries, a Westbury-based manufacturer of bulletproof vests, sent his company jet to retrieve Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from their Saturday gig in Pittsburgh.

I'm also told that in honor of Aerosmith (and the $2 million fee I hear he paid for their appearance), the 50-year-old Brooks changed from a black-leather, metal-studded suit - accessorized with biker-chic necklace chains and diamonds from Chrome Hearts jewelers - into a hot-pink suede version of the same lovely outfit.

The party cost an estimated $10 million, including the price of corporate jets to ferry the performers to and from. Also on the bill were The Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh performing with Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks; DJ AM (Nicole Richie's fiance); rap diva Ciara and, sadly perhaps (except that he received an estimated $250,000 for the job), Kenny G blowing on his soprano sax as more than 300 guests strolled and chatted into their pre-dinner cocktails.

Of course, I was interested in seeing what kind of defense contractor David Brooks (not the NY Times guy) was, and so I did a search on the name of his company, DHB Industries, and I found this from Long Island Business News:

The Army and Marine Corps have recalled about 18,000 bullet-resistant vests produced by DHB Industries' Point Blank Body Armor Inc. subsidiary, according to wire reports.

Reuters said that the Army and Marine Corps announced the recall on Thursday. The Army recalled 8,083 vests out of a total of 873,000 it has used in the field. The Marine Corp recalled 10,342 out of about 191,000 being used.

DHB did not return two calls to its offices seeking comment about this recall. The Marines already recalled 5,000 vests made by Point Blank in May, Reuters said.

The wire service indicated that the military said vests were being recalled because they fell short of specifications set for the equipment.

Did the vests cause injury? Well, there's also this from Newsday:

"The recall comes as a result of an operational test and evaluation surveillance study that revealed that some of the lots of outer tactical vests produced may not meet specifications," said Marine Maj. Gabrielle Chapin.

In a statement, Larry Ellis, DHB's president, said that, "To our knowledge, none of the hundreds of thousands of outer tactical vests that Point Blank has manufactured have failed in the field - an extraordinary achievement. All testing procedures for these vests were approved by, and conducted under the close supervision of the U.S. government."

The Army recalled 8,083 vests dating from 1999 to 2001. The Marines recalled 10,342 dating from 2000 and 2001. Military officials said, however, that the recalled vests were a fraction of the approximately 181,000 vests that have been fielded.

The vests were designed to protect against 9 mm pistol rounds and some fragmentation threats, the Pentagon has said. Pentagon officials said that while the vests may have failed to meet specifications in tests, they did not fall short of the requirements for the threat they were designed to repel.

So, no harm done, right? Well, I guess not.

Still, it certainly gives you a look into the world of defense contractors. They are rolling in blood money and happy to spend a lot of it to spoil their kids rotten.

My country 'tis of thee ...

Tags: DHB Industries, war profiteering, bulletproof vests, David H. Brooks, Elizabeth Brooks, Bat Mitzvah, 50 Cent, Tom Petty (all tags)