stupid question from contractor with issued armor

[octal]

I never thought I'd have to ask this, but how do you get blood out of your IBA? I assume you can't really launder it, and just rubbing with cold water didn't help much.

Comments

[strspn]

Too much blood for saliva (the best blood solvent)? Don't use bleach, at least not to start with. Use shampoo.

1. Find a comfortable location to begin your stain removal efforts. You want to be near or in a bathroom or by a large sink to avoid water leaking on floors and/or carpet.

2. Remove the Kevlar inserts if possible.

3. Douse the stain with a capful of shampoo, making sure that some shampoo touches every part of the stain.

4. Rub the soiled portions of the body armor until the shampoo is completely absorbed, then wet with cold or warm water. Once bubbles appear, briskly scrub the body armor. Rinse the stain and evaluate your efforts. Is the stain completely gone? Is their a slight ring showing the shape of the stain? Is the stain still visible? If any portion of the blood is still visible, including a light ring, then follow this step two or three more times. By the third time, fresh stains should be totally removed. However, if the stain has been allowed to sit in the body armor for 48 hours or so - even if it is still visible after you attempted to remove by traditional machine washing - than you will likely need to pour shampoo on the stain and soak the body armor for several hours. Overnight soaking is also possible, if you desire to do so. Once you have soaked the stain for the allotted time, then you can wash the body armor.

5. Body armor that has been treated for blood stains by shampoo and rinsed can then be washed according to your usual preferred methods and/or the manufacturer’s instructions. If you prefer bleaching your white cotton body armor, you can do so at this stage - be it liquid bleach for whites or non-chlorine bleach for colored body armor. Since the shampoo has been rinsed out of the body armor, it will not impair your detergent or bleach’s cleaning ability.

6. Think of a good apology to have ready if you ever meet Iraqi Police Major Crimes Unit Chief Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, or any of the families of Professor and international liason Salah Jmor and Knight-Ridder's special Iraqi correspondent Yasser Salihee.

7. Look into Iranian contracting rules and regulations for not-too-distant future reference.