By Debbie Gregory.

Due to a potential gap in the capability of ground forces and infantry to penetrate body armor using existing ammunition, the U.S. Army is looking for an Interim Combat Service Rifle (ICSR) to address this need.

The competition for a new 7.62mm Interim Service Combat Rifle will result in up to eight contracts, procuring seven types of weapons from each gunmaker for evaluating and testing.

At the end of the testing, the Army “may award a single follow-on Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) based contract for the production of up to 50,000 weapons,” according to a solicitation on FedBizOpps.gov.

The service’s present plan is to evaluate the submissions against a three main factors, which are, in order of importance, the features of the “bid sample” itself, the production capability of the vendor or vendors, and the price.

The Interim Combat Service Rifle should have either 16-inch or 20-inch barrels, a collapsible buttstock, an extended forward rail and weigh less than 12 pounds unloaded and without an optic.

There is definitely a need for this sort of weapon. For years, critics have complained that insurgents and terrorists with Soviet-era weapons had better range and terminal ballistics than their American counterparts armed mainly with 5.56mm weapons.

Multiple proposals may be submitted by the same organization; however, each proposal must consist of the weapons, proposal, and System Safety Assessment Report. All proposals are due by 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, September 6, 2017.

On June 9, Strategic Threat Management (STM) were awarded the Small Employer of the Year for companies with 200 employees or less from the California Department of Disabled American Veterans (DAV).

The award recognizes their support of veterans in the local community through providing outreach and hiring of veterans. Currently, 30% of employees at Strategic Threat Management are veterans.

“We were honored to be in attendance with real American heroes,” says owner Larry Treat. “Veterans bring a whole different mindset and work ethic to the job. They have been through formal training, they are team players, leadership is instilled in them and you can spot a veteran a mile away.”

Treat himself is a Marine Corps Veteran and feels honored to hire other veterans when he can and provide as much outreach as possible on veteran events, fundraisers and hand out informational packets.

Since forming Strategic Threat Management, Treat says they been involved in numerous events such as the Stand Down on the Delta, held numerous fundraisers and countless donations to organizations.

“We are honored that the local veteran community has accepted us so we feel honored to go to great lengths to ensure we can hire veterans whenever possible,” said Treat.

Strategic Threat Management provides both armed and unarmed security services for both private and public entities and is located out of Antioch, CA.

The U.S. Army is shopping around for its next armored dump truck.

The U.S Army has plans to purchase 683 M917A3 armored dump trucks. To that end, the service branch is inviting industry to compete for chance to build these new armored dump trucks.

The new M917A3 requires a max payload of 27 tons on primary and secondary roads. The crew cab and underbody armor protection should be capable of being changed out separately based on the mission without affecting performance.

According to the May 26 solicitation, the Army intends to award a Single-Source Award, Firm-Fixed Price, Seven-year Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity commercial contract for the dump truck.

The solicitation states: “The Army requires units with dependable and deployable M917A3s that have reduced operations and support costs and increased operational effectiveness and readiness over existing systems. This is critical to support the Joint Forces as they conduct more operations in areas of the world with austere infrastructures and little or no host nation support. The M917A3 will be capable of supporting mobility, counter mobility, survivability and sustainment operations.”

The Contract Data Requirements packet is 121 pages and is available for downloading at govtribe.com. Responses are due July 25

The last time the Army purchased new dump trucks was in 17 years ago when it awarded a $400 million contract to Freightliner LLC to build almost 3,400 M917A2s, as well as M915A3 line haul tractors and M916A3 light equipment transporters.

By Debbie Gregory.

Army Colonel Anthony Roper, along with his wife and others, has been accused of participating in what federal prosecutors are calling a bribery and kickback scheme. They allegedly conspired to seek and accept bribes in order to rig more than $20 million in Army contracts to individuals and companies.

It is alleged that the activities go back to 2008, lasting close to a decade.

Colonel Roper was stationed at Fort Gordon near Augusta, Georgia.  Oversight of the Army’s efforts to build and modernize its information and communications networks was part of Colonel Roper’s duties.

Charged with bribery, obstruction and making false statements, the 55-year-old Roper could face a maximum sentence of eighty-five years and a fine of $1.75 million if convicted.

His wife, Audra Roper, was also charged with conspiracy, false statements and obstruction and could face a maximum sentence of twenty-five years  and a $750,000 fine.

Mrs. Roper operated Quadar Group, which prosecutors allege was a shell company that was used to funnel bribes to her husband, Colonel Roper.   Prosecutors allege that Quadar Group was one of a number of shell companies used to defraud the government.

Dwayne Oswald Fulton, 58, is charged with conspiracy and obstruction.   Mr. Fulton was an officer for a large defense contracting company.  His firm is not identified in the court records.

The indictment also alleges that in trying to hide the schemes, the three accused attempted to obstruct an official investigation looking into their conduct.

Fort Gordon has not commented on these allegations.  According to court records filed this week, attorneys representing the defendants are not listed.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

By Debbie Gregory

Veteran Business Owner Sonny Tosco is a go-getter. The 30 year-old entrepreneur is not shy about going after what he wants.

That skill came in handy during his time at West Point, his six years of service as an Army operations officer, and most recently in his role as CEO of Limelight Mobile,  a social platform that lets users source real-time images from anywhere in the world.

Tosco came from a low income California immigrant family.  He knew the only way to get ahead was to attend a top-tier school and excel.  In 2002, Tosco was accepted to West Point.

The transition from West Point to active duty had its challenges, and Tosco used his off-duty time to explore entrepreneurship.  As a result, not only did he learn a lot of valuable information, his military career began to improve.

During his deployment to Bahrain, Tosco found that the media had misrepresented the situation on the ground. While they were prepared for battle, the areas where he was deployed to still had American families, conducting daily life as usual.

He felt that had Limelight existed back then, things would have been different. The community driven app designed to crowd source photos from anywhere on earth would have allowed him to see anywhere in the world in real time. He would have been able to reach out to anyone on the map and ask them to send a photo of their location. And that quality information would have benefitted pre-deployment preparation.

But life is not without tragedy, and the successive loss of both of his parents, a good friend, as well as the miscarriage of his child left Tosco revaluating his life. In 2012, he decided to transition out of the military. His military career came to an end, but his entrepreneurial journey was just beginning.

Today, Tosco is raising seed funding for the second version of the app.  Approximately 35% of all users log in on a daily basis, compared to the 5% for other social platforms.

Tosco connected with Don Faul, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the COO of Pinterest, who has provided Tosco and his team with guidance.

Sonny Tosco is achieving his dream.