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It seems my admiration for the switch from the Army Green Uniform to the Army Blue Uniform is somewhat outside the mainstream of thought. The Instapundit points us to an article that says it is envy of the Marines. Not in my case. I just hated the Army Green Uniform. There’s a pretty good discussion…
It seems my admiration for the switch from the Army Green Uniform to the Army Blue Uniform is somewhat outside the mainstream of thought.
The Instapundit points us to an article that says it is envy of the Marines. Not in my case. I just hated the Army Green Uniform.
There’s a pretty good discussion going on over at the Castle. I’m on the losing side so far.
I’m with you. This looks bad, but the Greens look worse. Besides, it’s really an academic discussion because while the Marines still actually wear their office work uniform on a regular basis, how many Army personnel wear something other than ACUs to work? I’m willing to guess that outside of the five sided puzzle palace, not too many.
Now if the Army was willing to become a little more “formal” of a service and go the Marine route of only wearing utilities “in the field,” then it would make sense to invest in a suitable office work uniform, like the khakis. But since as of now it’s pretty common to see an Army member in their ACUs be-bopping to the Burger King to grab some lunch, I doubt that will happen. Of course, the USAF is the same way…only the maritime services seem to believe differently.
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When I was a recruiter, BDUs were pretty much a no-no( I kept one set ready with a USAREC patch, just in case). From what I’m seeing now, though, most recruiters are in ACUs.
I liked getting dressed up. I REALLY liked getting dressed up for a party and having my best girl in a Little Black Dress.
But, yeah, most days, just a fatigue uniform. By the time I left, pretty much the only restriction was sitting in a bar in BDUs.
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I can’t speak to current Army policy, but current USAF policy prohibits the wear of utility/working uniforms (to include flight suits) in any sort of eating establishment where the civilian dining attire would not be comparable to said utilities. Given the general decline in formal wear in this country, what that amounts to in practice is that as long as you aren’t going to eat in a restaurant where your meal comes in courses and your wine costs more than the meal, you’re probably good to wear utilities.
Contrast that to the Marine policy where you can’t even hit the gas station if you’re driving home in your utilities. That’s a little extreme to me, but it seems like there could be a happy medium. There’s something to be said for looking professional. Maybe it’s just me, but flight suits and baggy bloused camouflage doesn’t exactly scream professional.
Oh, and forgot to say in the first comment that I think it would go a long way towards making your dress uniform look better if you got rid of half of the bling. Whenever I see Gen. Petraeus testifying before Congress in his Class As I have to remind myself that he’s wearing the current Army dress uniform as opposed to something one of the Iraqi generals loaned him. The USAF has too much crap on our dress uniform, but we’ve got nothing on you guys.
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Don’t remember the last time I saw an Army person wearing a uniform other than ACU. What did get me recently was bumping into one (almost literally) at the local post office and realizing the camo is now PIXELATED.
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Heh, as far as I’m concerned, the SecDef should decree that everyone wears MARPAT and that’s the end of it. There’s really no reason for each service to have its own individual camouflage pattern and uniform.
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They came close to that back in the BDU days, but apparently, being the action officer for coming up with new uniforms looks good on an OER.
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As I pointed out elsewhere, the Army Blue Uniform has been around a lot longer than the green one it’s replacing. The Army of course screws it up by allowing those “special” folks to blouse their trousers. Why don’t they just say Cavalry types can wear riding boots with the pants tucked in…there is at least an historical president for it.
The blue uniform has been worn for years as the uniform of the”Old Guard”. For those who aren’t familiar the “Old Guard” are the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. I can’t recall anyone ever saying those uniforms looked bad or were in some way exhibiting envy of the USMC. This whole thing is ridiculous and is exacerbated by the stunning lack of historical knowledge exhibited by all involved.
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I saw this post and had to comment. I really love my husband’s new blue uniform – it’s a lot easier for me to match an outfit to. Matter of fact I just bought a gorgeous dress today and he and I are getting pics this coming week now that his new uniform is all together. I didn’t care too much for the green uniform – and when I compared the two side to side this morning – the blue one looks really sharp, especially with the hat. But that’s just an army wife’s take on the whole subject of uniforms. I sure do like my man in uniform!! 🙂
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Thanks, ARW. I’m getting the impression that the dislike isn’t so much the Class A version of the Blues, but rather the Class B.
And isn’t the important thing about a uniform impressing the women?
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I don’t know how many iterations I went through with the Air Force but it was too many. The one that actually pissed me off the most was probably the cheapest. Obama’s boy McPeak spoke from Mount Headquarters that verily, there shall be v-neck t-shirts and so it was written. That wasn’t the only reason everyone disliked McPeak but it didn’t earn him any love.
I’ve been retired now for more than 11 years and they’re coming out with a new dress uniform that will look like the Marine greens. Belt and all but in some shade of blue. Fine. The one thing that kills me though is why is it necessary for the Army, Marines, and Air Force to have different utilities. That’s just stupid. And fuck velcro.
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Oddly enough, I always thought the colors of the current AF blues looked great, either as Class A’s or Class B’s. Most blue suiters looked pretty sharp. For fags.
Never understood what the whole V-neck bug up Merrill’s ass was. My dad was a lifelong V-neck guy, but I can’t stand the damn things. Lots of guys in the Army wear their brown t-shirts backwards because they don’t like them sagging.
And as I mentioned above, they came close to everyone wearing the same utilities back in the days of the BDU. It’s only been in the last few years everyone has decided to go nuts about changing the uniform. I blame Shinseki for starting it when he adopted the beret.
I took a set of lightweight BDUs when they first came out and cut off the buttons on the pockets and sewed on velcro. Wasn’t bad, just wasn’t worth the effort. It wore out to fast.
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Velcro = noisy. I can see using velcro for unit patches that get yanked off when the balloon goes up but on pockets it drives me crazy. All of my fishing shirts have velcro, my Columbia shorts uses velcro. I hate that stuff. It is cheaper for the manufacturers than putting on buttons. I bet if they offered stuff buttons versus velcro that they’d have more button buyers than velcro even if they charged higher prices for the button stuff. Their profit would remain the same.
/rant
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xbradtc,
You’re showing your age nobody wears brown t-shirts anymore, they are either tan or green.
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When I first got out of flight school there were still guys in my unit flying with old Vietnam era two piece flight suits. A year from now we can only wear the new ACU flight suit…no more one piece cool looking chick magnets. A sad day indeed.
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“no more one piece cool looking chick magnets”
But on the plus side, no one will mistake you for an Air Farce pilot.
“You’re showing your age nobody wears brown t-shirts anymore, they are either tan or green.”
Unless you’re in the USAF. Then under the BDUs it’s either brown or black. The ABUs have some funky sand colored synthetic shirt.
I don’t particularly mind the new dress uniform (at least what I’ve seen of it) but I didn’t particularly mind the old one either. Not really sure why we needed to change.
Oh, and fuck v-neck shirts. That’s almost enough to make me join the Navy right there. At least they wear crew necks, even if they have 8 different uniforms.
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“Not really sure why we needed to change.”
Actually, I think I can answer my own question. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the longest comment thread of the week is on a post having to do with uniforms.
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As I said above, I think most people are OK with the Class A Blues, but don’t like the B’s. If I had my druthers, the Army would go back to khakis for B’s.
Then again, if I was in charge, there’d be a heck of a lot of changes.
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After this dies out, I’m putting up another thread on war movies. I’m still getting hits off that post.
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Mike,
No one ever mistook anyone I knew as a Air Farce pilot, we actually had a haircut and our flightsuit wasn’t un-zipped down to our crotch. 🙂
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The Dress Blus are a DRESS uniform. The “greens” look better IMO for office work. Most of the junior enlisted have too much money going out to support their families to buy yet another uniform.
If we just HAVE to have a new Class A, go back to the pinks and greens. At least that looks military. The new Class B’s look teh ghey….
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[…] Stupid Pt. 5 Ok, I’m getting kicked around in the comments of Pt. 4. Fair enough. The important thing is, we aren’t as screwed up as the dorks in the Air Force. […]
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[…] Uniformly Stupid Pt 4 Bring the heat Bring the Stupid Posted by root 11 minutes ago (http://xbradtc.wordpress.com) Oh and forgot to say in the first comment that i think it would go a long way towards making they came close to that back in the bdu days but apparently powered by ringsurf middot site meter my blog is worth 21452 52 how much is your blog worth theme cont Discuss | Bury | News | Uniformly Stupid Pt 4 Bring the heat Bring the Stupid […]
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