Cammies for shipboard sailors has to be the ultimate stupid uniform idea of all time. I literally cannot think of anything dumber except maybe shocking pink tu-tus — and I hesitate to mention that because someone on some uniform board is probably going to think it’s a great idea.
The Zelmo (let’s make everyone a chief) uniform was bad, but at least one decent uniform came out of it. The old summer Salt and Peppers. Black (Navy Blue) trousers, white shirt, combo cover (this was before we got the dixie cups back. Simple, practical, and wearable almost anywhere in the Navy.
Naturally that didn’t last. Summer dress had to be whites, winter dress had to be blues. Trying to keep any kind of white trouser wearable for more than half a day was an exercise in futility.
OK, around 1978 or so we got the cracks back. Not bad looking. You felt like a sailor when you wore them. The leftover Zumwalt uniforms were still floating around when I got out in 1986.
God only knows what they have these days.
I thought it was funny when they put US Navy on the dungaree shirts. WTF? They need to look at their shirt to figure out what service they’re in? Yeeeeeesh!!!
Ronin I can't swear as to who actually gave the Crackerjacks back but it came about the time of Hildigo being SECNAV. That was given back as were many other missing traditions like the Bosun's whistle. He had a philosophy I agreed with. If you wanted men to act like sailors then treat them as such. The Zumalt uniforms should have never happened to start with. So that PITA uniform change was his bright idea huh? That figures. I knew it was before 1976 because I came out of boot with it.
The dungarees were the most practical work uniform with a few exceptions. We were allowed to wear green coveralls while working in the hole at sea. Also Boat Crew was given solid dark blue coveralls which were more functional for the task and let everybody involved at Fleet Landing etc know who were were. The only ones wearing any kind of CAMO's were the Marines. Even EOD either wore green coveralls or Dungarees at sea. The other exception to uniform variants was the obvious sweat shirts for job identification reasons.