Flak Jacket

My husband is out of the Navy within a week. He has to clean and turn in all her gear before it comes out. There are two problems of his bulletproof vest and sunglasses. The bulletproof vest has sweat stains on it. And the sunglasses have a strap that needs cleaned. The strap on the sunglasses has marks pen and ink and permanent marker. I think the straps for sunglasses is made of the same type of material that bulletproof vest. He has already tried to clean the equipment. Using a mixture of liquid soap and a pressure washer. And it did not work. So I told him I'll try to clean things up for him. If anyone if familiar with the cleaning equipment such military, could you please tell me what to use for cleaning. Thank you.

For the ink, try rubbing alcohol and stir with a right toothbrush. For the permanent marker, acetone (as in nail polish remover) is the only thing that will remove it. For the sweat, try ammonia right. If this does not lather a bar of Fels soak it work in stains, let sit for a while and then soaked in a solution of 1 cup of borax in water sufficient to cover the bullet-proof vest and rinse in a solution of vinegar and water to neutralize the soap.

Thank you for your husband for his service. Semper Fi!

When I was in the army I use to clean all my gear with a simple shampoo and that seems to do a good job. What I would do is get a Tupperware container large (as you store your orders) fill with hot water and a generous amount of shampoo to the coat in it and soak for about an day, then release it, scrub with a stiff brush and spray with a hose and let dry. I use to clean my Kevlar straps like that (when they had straps) and it worked very well. Give it a shot!

If this does not work, another thing I used was a product called Simple Green. This might work better on the strap sunglasses, but I doubt you'll be able to get the marker out of it. Also, I would check that you have to turn most po CIF does not want this stuff back, because they are cheap enough and are not really made to last. I know I always use to put all sorts of efforts to clean up my gear, then when I went to turn I've always had a pile of shit left over they would not back and I always been pissed about how much time I wasted trying to clean it!