Posted on 09/28/2008 7:09:24 PM PDT by hattend
When I was in the Mighty United States Air Force back in the early 1960s, there were several “uniform” mixes. We still had the 505 khakis with shortsleeved shirts, then 1505s, with smaller chevrons; blues with both blouses and Ike jackets; garrison and The Other Kind of hats; sage grey/green fatigues (Army fatigues were also authorized); tan colored dacrons; bush jackets/bermuda shorts/knee high khaki socks/low quarter shoes and pith helmets; and my favorite, the blue wool shirts/trousers, with or without the tie. I missed the era of longsleeved khakis. I always thought that eventually the USAF Class A uniform would evolve into a blue blazer w/slacks, grey, and the insignia of rank would be a lapel pin.
Take a look at the US Army Air Service uniforms and you’ll see a lot of similarities in the design.
thats easy... Capt.America for the Army, Superman for the AirForce and Aquaman for the Navy...
...and the Marines?
The Hulk .... big, green and breaking stuff :)
I like my ABU’s, leave the service dress alone. It works.
Hmmmmmmm. That works.
the Hulk...
Nahh, that USAF uniform strikes me as more the work of Battlestar Galactica fans.
http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/BattlestarEnding.jpg
The Air Force should just go ahead and base all of their uniforms on the show. :o)
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Uniforms_(RDM)
I've worn high collar dress uniforms - both 'blouses' (equivalent to this jacket, but with a zipper down the frong and no pockets, fitted to the body) and coatees (the tail coat with oodles of buttons) at VMI - and I have to say they look good but are not particularly comfortable.
I kinda like it. Collars and ties are soooo....French.
AF Mess Dress is pretty sharp because it's so well-tailored, but we called our baggy blue service dress "bus driver suits".
A quick reality check is in order.
Over the last 35 odd years I have seen chiefs of staff come and chief of staff go. Most of them truly wanted to make needed changes to our Air Force. All of them quickly learned that needed changes can not happen. They get eaten alive by the REMF staff.
The days of Hap Arnold, Curtis LeMay and other fire breathing paladins are gone. The war time pit bull mentality has been replaced with yapping lap dogs. The bad part is we did it to ourselves starting 30 years ago.
Someone in the mid-1970s decided that AF officers were no longer leaders but managers. I am sorry but I have never met a manager who could order his employees to live in tents, wear “battle rattle”, and if they fail to follow orders fine and confine them. Plus, if things get bad enough, ruin their entire future. But the REFMs that had no idea what combat was about were the “experienced” staff officers that all needed changes had to pass through.
The influence of the REFMs got so bad that the AF designed a special badge to be worn on the uniforms so you can distinguish between senior officer who commanded and one who shuffled paper.
What combat officers that made it to high ranks quickly found out that the only thing they could change during their tour of duty was the uniform. So we have horror story after horror story of unnecessary changes. Remember the early 1980’s dress white and dress blue uniforms “designed to fill the gap between the class A blues and mess dress“? A double knit white uniform, shoes, and hat. ATC was forcing their field grade officers to buy the “Good Humor” uniform before cooler heads prevailed. How about the seams that were stiched into the flight suit because the flight suit didn’t look professional enough? How about silver and gold stars worn on the flight suit cuffs to denote flying hours and combat hours?
And don’t start me on logo wars.
Bottom line - because of the proliferation of REMF staff warriors we have allowed ourselves to become so tied up in paperwork knots that the only changes that a Chief of Staff can accomplish in four years is a new uniform or uniform change! The days of firing subordinates for poor performance are gone - much better to destroy an airplane and kill a crew than “ruin a man’s career.
I always thought the other branches had the AF whipped when it comes to dress uniforms. It's too hard to make dark blue look good. They've been tinkering with it for years, and never get it right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
