Congress to Pentagon; Stop the uniform madness
Mark sends us a link to Military Times which reports that the new defense authorization bill for 2014 contains a paragraph which addresses the utility uniform differences between the services, that they should all stop wasting billions of dollars to design and then scrap their forays into martial fashion;
The compromise defense authorization bill for 2014 includes a provision that directs the Defense Department to “to adopt and field a common combat and camouflage utility uniform, or family of uniforms, for specific combat environments, to be used by all members of the armed forces.”
And if that becomes law, as appears likely, it would change the future image of the joint force.
For years, lawmakers have been annoyed by the military services’ increasingly elaborate wardrobe of camouflage variants designed for the same forward-deployed environments. Over the past decade, the four services have developed at least seven new combat utility uniforms, each with its own unique design.
Yeah, I don’t get it, either. Back in my day, sonny, the Ranger Battalions wore camouflaged jungle fatigues and the 82d had them for a field-only uniform. For that reason, seeing a clerk in camouflage is strange and out of sorts. Maternity BDUs had the same effect on me. So having the Navy and the Air Force in their completely worthless camouflage seems even more odd. And of course, there are the Marines and their MARPATs;
This year, the Joint Staff’s top enlisted adviser, Marine Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia, said the mix of uniforms makes the U.S. military look like a “Baskin-Robbins” and signaled his support for a common uniform.
But Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos recently said preserving the Corps’ MARPAT pattern is a top priority and declared that his service will stick to it “like a hobo to a ham sandwich.”
Yeah, that’s helpful. I’m glad that Amos finally found something he can get adamant about, but it’s unfortunate that the something is fashion.
Category: Air Force, Marine Corps, Military issues, Navy
Reminds me of the conversation back in camouflage class in my JROTC days …
Instructor: Hey, I haven’t seen you in class for six weeks!
Me: It’s working!
(Ba-dum-bump)
@Hondo – honestly, why require black boots? I understand shining for parades maybe…. but honestly, what worth is a spit shine really? That is one ofthe few uniform changes they have gotten RIGHT… hell, issue a darkish brown rough-out boot in all circumstances – no matter where in the field you wear it, it’s gonna be local-camoed in about 20 minutes anyway.
@50: I’m not sure how this would work for the other services, but for the Army at least (and my guess is for the USMC as well) it really doesn’t make much sense to have a “garrison” and “field” uniform because there isn’t a clear cut line between those two conditions. You may have been in the infantry most of your career, and so you probably lived in your “field” uniform, but for other career fields, you can go back and forth between “field” and “garrison” multiple times in the same day. It makes more sense, IMO, to simply go back to what worked for virtually my entire career, which is to have one uniform (BDU) that is both a garrison and a field uniform and is issued to all services. Personally I hated the green “pickle suits” they issued in 1980 when I was in basic training. You couldn’t carry anything in the shirt pockets because they bulged out, if you put change in the pants pockets it would fall out when you sat down, and if your gig line wasn’t straight you looked like crap. Plus having to tuck your shirt into your pants made the uniform too hot for Fort Benning in August. OTOH, I loved BDUs. Yes, there were some false starts, the “Elvis” collars and the crappy dye they used in the early runs that would fade to almost a gray (hey, same color as the new ACU!) But a good troop could make BDUs look good, and they were a functional uniform as well. My weekly ritual was Sunday night ironing two sets of BDUs for the week and shining two pairs of boots. Never took me longer than an hour and I did it while I was watching TV anyway. Of course I had some ratty “field uniforms” too, as we all did. This current uniform nonsense is a great example of fixing what was never broken in the first place. A few tweaks of the BDU to adapt it for body armor (angled shirt pockets and sleeve pockets, delete the useless lower… Read more »
@52: I don’t know, I kind of go back and forth on the boots. Yes, I like a low maintenance boot, but a shined boot looks sharp, military.
I was in Kuwait for most of 2004, and of course we all wore DCUs. Every now and then we’d get visitors from the US or Europe and I remember thinking how odd the green BDU and shiny black boots looked when I’d gotten so used to seeing everyone in varying shades of tan for so long. I really think the DCU is one of the best looking field uniforms we’ve ever had, I loved mine. If we’re going to keep devoting our military energies to the Middle East, maybe we should just adopt the DCU as the standard uniform?
David: the black boots are a proven design and the govt presumably still has the design specs available. Might even be some left in inventory.
I’m not all that hard over on the footwear, so long as it’s the same across the board. Suede or smooth leather works for me equally well (though suede’s a beyotch to clean if it gets really dirty or oil-stained). Same is true for dark brown or some lighter color – stain it and it doesn’t really look worth a damn afterwards. Thus I’d recommend making the garrison footwear black; it can always be re-polished or re-stained so long as the boot itself is serviceable. Black polish/stain will cover damn near anything.
— break —
martinjpmr: the BDU was a decent woodland pattern, once the initial “growing pains” were fixed. But I’d argue that if you’re going between field and garrison routinely, you’re participating in a field problem – and should be in a field uniform anyway.
The main problem I had with BDUs was that they were about 3x as costly as the uniform they replaced, and got beat to hell in daily wear. That meant the troop might end up going to the field or deploying with worn, borderline clothing. The BDU was also much more difficult to maintain than the wash-n-wear “pickle suit”, thus taking more of the troops time (or money) to do so.
We issue troops new uniforms when they’re deploying today. I think the model of “garrison uniform for daily wear, issue field uniform from CIF, DX them if deploying to another region” makes the most sense. But the BDU model worked OK – provided you didn’t mind making the troops pick up a larger than necessary share of the cost of owning/maintaining their uniforms.
Seabag? On the boat? Pfft. Poopy suits, couple pairs of dungarees, dress whites, dress blues, socks, t-shirts, underwear, and a change or two of civvies.
Rest of the rack pan was dedicated to geedunk and spank material. And not much of that.
@55: Every enlisted troop gets a clothing allowance and honestly of all the complaining I heard by other soldiers, the cost of uniforms wasn’t one of them.
Troops who work in the motor pool or on the flight line are issued coveralls or flight suits with their TA-50 and those can be exchanged at the unit level when needed (hell, as an intel geek, I was issued coveralls when I was in the 1st Armored Division HQ because we had a track, several 5 tons and deuce-and-a-halfs, and those were maintained by us enlisted folks.)
The pickle suit might have been cheap but in my experience was not all that comfortable or utilitarian. And of course any time you introduce multiple uniforms you are increasing the maintenance time and effort that the Joes have to expend.
One way to deal with the cost issue to the soldier is to do what they did in two of the SF battalions I was in (3/1 and 3/3): Each one of us was issued 3 sets of “field” BDUs as part of our TA-50, which could be exchanged at CIF when they became worn. So no excuse for Joe to have an unpresentable uniform in garrison and no excuse for him to have an unserviceable one in the field.
@53: Elvis collars were alive and well on deployment #2 (OEF 2006-2007), all of the Air Force jokers were issued DCUs as the Army phased ours out for the ACU.
I even saw a few departing Soldiers with Elvis collared DCUs but not nearly as many as I saw Airmen.
@53: Are you sure you mean DCU and not DBDU? The DCU was the 3-color pattern, the DBDU was the 6 color “chocolate chip” design that was widely used in Desert Storm. I don’t think I ever saw any DCUs with the Elvis Collar, but the DBDU (the design actually dates back to the early Bright Star and MNF Sinai deployments in the early 80’s) were often in “elvis collar” configuration.
@47 GEN Amos was actually quoted a few months ago stating the Marine Corps’ pride and traditions should be on equal footing with tactical necessity when it comes to this debate. Most who know him should not be surprised he’d trade lives for PR and bravado.
Personally, I liked MARPAT. However, I also liked the old Tri-color woodlands/deserts. I wasn’t thrilled when we switched, but we had to and that was it. I was really sold on the MARPAT when I had an Iraqi say they could tell us (Army and Marines) because of our camouflage and that is why they would hit the Army more on patrols than our squads because, according to him, the Marines “are crazy.”
Anyhow, it really is about wanting a distinction between services. For so long the USMC has done less with more and they want to be distinguished because of it. We also have worked hard to brand the USMC, so making sure we are recognizable/distinguishable is important, I imagine.
Lastly, I don’t care what I wear. As long as it makes my ass safer I want it.
@61: That kind of proves the point, doesn’t it? “Distictiveness” is perfectly appropriate – for DRESS uniforms. For field uniforms, do we really want to be giving our enemy important information (like when a unit changes) just so we can feel pumped up about our cool uniforms? Does that even make sense? If the enemy “hits” the Army harder than the Marines, wouldn’t it make sense, tactically, to deprive the enemy of the ability to know who they were facing?
Or are we so vested in the need for dick-measuring in garrison that we’ll risk the lives of the troops in the field in order to support it?
I know the difference between chocolate chip & DCU. Maybe I’m mistaken on the definition of Elvis Collar though. I always heard the DCUs with the massive collars that nearly reach the shoulder of the wearer called “Elvis Collars.”
Like this:
http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/uploads//monthly_12_2009/post-566-1262134492.jpg
“Or are we so vested in the need for dick-measuring in garrison that we’ll risk the lives of the troops in the field in order to support it?”
Perhaps this question should be directed to senior USMC leadership. I understand they’re the ones stopping the rest of DoD from using MARPAT or any variant thereof (even one without the embedded EGA).
If the Army leadership had any balls, they’d be asking this exact question publicly in the press – then telling the world exactly why the Army doesn’t use MARPAT.
I am sick of seeing inter-service BS like this cost DoD dearly. And in this case, it’s literally costing troops’ lives.
@64: Hondo my only disagreement is with regards to who is responsible.
The “senior leadership of the USMC” doesn’t have a lick of authority that does not come from their ultimate superiors, the Secretary of Defense and the President.
And the Marines don’t “own” anything other than their very proud heritage. The MARPAT pattern “belongs” to the People of the United States, you know, the guys the Marines work for.
@63 My mistake, I didn’t realize the DCU ever came in ‘elvis collars.’ I’m pretty sure none of mine ever did, although my DBDUs did.
Elaborating on my post above, as with so many other issues, this is simply a failure of leadership. This is not (or should not be) a “political” issue. What the Marines want or don’t want is irrelevant. The armed forces are subject to the orders of the civilian leadership, and that leadership absolutely has the authority to say “this is what the new uniforms will be. Period.”
Quick question for those of you older than me: Was there this much of a clusterfawk when the BDUs were adopted in 1981? I was in the Army then but of course we didn’t have the internet to give us the behind-the-scenes wrangling. All I remember was reading in Army Times and the other various publications that the new camo uniforms were coming out and would soon be available in the MCSS. Of course people were bitching about it – people always bitch about change – but I remember the transition as being a fairly orderly one.
As a side note: I can’t remember the “wear out” date on the green “pickle suit” fatigues, but I do remember one person still wearing a “pickle suit” as late as Summer or fall of 1987 when I was stationed in Germany. I presume he was someone who was about to ETS and didn’t want to spend his clothing allowance on a uniform he would only be wearing for a month or so.
Martinjmpr: what you say is true. But what happens in reality often differs from what is the case on paper. At that level, subordinates often “slow roll” or otherwise oppose changes they don’t like directed by their superiors. Often, they’re successful in counteracting them for a while – or permanently.
My understanding is that Army leadership has broached the issue of using MARPAT (or a variant) with the USMC, and that the USMC has told them in no uncertain terms to “go pound sand”. The Army leadership appears unwilling to take the issue either to DoD leadership or go public.
IMO they should. Here, we’re literally talking soldiers’ lives being put at risk because the Army doesn’t want to “p!ss anyone off”.
For that failure the Army leadership deserves any criticism they might get. Sometimes you have to be willing to fight for your people’s welfare even if it p!sses others off. IMO that’s just not happening in this case.