Posted on 06/14/2011 10:06:41 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Army is abandoning the beret, after a failed 10-year experiment.
The black beret, which proved deeply unpopular with American soldiers, will be replaced by a patrol cap for everyday wear, US Army spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said Monday.
The move came after outgoing Army chief of staff, General Martin Dempsey, asked the army's sergeant major "to go out and talk to soldiers across the force and see what was on their minds," Collins told AFP.
"One of the things that soldiers consistently brought up was the desire to wear the patrol cap as part of their duty uniform," he said.
The beret will still be part of the Army's dress uniform, but will no longer be worn in the field as soldiers complained that it was impractical, he said.
"It does not have a visor and doesn't shield the sun, doesn't absorb sweat well," Collins said.
One soldier put it more bluntly.
"I hate wearing a wet sock on my head," Chief Warrant Officer Mark Vino, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, told the Army Times. "Plus it makes head/skin break out."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I knew a 1LT who insisted on wearing this:
Especially in Afghanistan, during the worst combat.
The image didn’t come through. Please repost. I need a good laugh.
I’ve been watching an ongoing US Army/USAF/US Navy uniform debate thread on another board for months.
I think that what I’ve come to understand is this:
1. The US Army ACU is unsatisfactory camo unless you’re trying to hide in a greasy alley behind a liquor store on the bad side of town next behind the dimpsty dumpster.
2. The US Army’s quest to look ‘elite’ will never be found in velcroing Boy Scout merit badges onto your baggy-assed Army ACUs and topping it off with a colored French hat. That uniform makes every soldier look just like how pregnant female US Marines look in the sixth month of their pregnancy just before being shitcanned out of the ‘Corps.
3. The US Navy’s decision to make sailors dress up like pretend Marines is an outrage. Enlisted sailors ought to wear the classic Crackerjack uniform until they become CPOs. The current Navy camo uniform must be intentionally designed so that if someone falls overboard, they’ll never be located by searchlight even if they’re only 30 yards off the fantail. Whoever thought up the US Navy blue camo uniform ought to be cashiered out of the Navy on principle.
4. The USAF, I don’t know what they’re doing. At all. One day they’re in obsolete desert camo, another day in weird Tigerstripe camp that matches nothing at all, including tigers, and they can mix and match and even wear the USAF blue jacket over their tigerstripe camp. Come to think of it, does the USAF even NEED camo uniforms? Personally maybe bright reflective orange stripes are in order so their enlisted flightline personnel don’t get accidentally run over by a baggage carrier truck thing like I see at airports.
5. No matter how earnestly the Pentagon plays dress-up with the American military, they’re just not going to get everyone to look like Marines unless they ARE Marines. Period.
6. Just stop goofing around with every branch of the service getting to design their own uniform and adopt one that does it all ... You know, like we somehow managed to get by with doing from 1939 through 2001.
It does seem the Army has a real problem with its attire. The green blouse that soldier wore for years reminded me of a cheap copy of a Wehrmacht uniform. I don't know if anyone else had that opinion, but I could never see a soldier wearing a green blouse without wanting to yell “Sieg Heil” - just to see what would happen.
And the head gear, what a joke. Remember the pillbox hats from Korea? Or who can forget the funny looking baseball caps of the Vietnam years, an item of headgear that was (from what I was told) loathed by all soldiers below the rank of general. And the current model: a lopsided copy of the Marine Corps issue.
Who knows what the Army will try next: maybe a reissue of the WWI piscutter; or maybe to emphasize tradition, a reissue of Civil War headgear.
That's not near as bad as "outsourcing" air to air missiles from the PLA.
There were rumors...
Regards,
GtG
Ok, you win that one, but my point still stands.
That's a dress uniform and not applicable to this discussion. Enlisted sailors still wear that uniform btw, they just don't work in it, nor should they work in the swealtering thing.
In the 'Corps, we called them 'Gangbangies' because the sailors looked like California penal inmates.
That's all sailors need, not some weird blue tigerstripe camo costume.
Dungarees. The NWU’s (the one you don’t like) replaced them long after I was gone.
Everyone hated them btw. You’re right on in your prison garb comparison. I was in Great Lakes Naval Hospital watching Bird Man of Alcatraz, when it dawned on me, that I had a closet full of the same outfit he was wearing. I don’t have strong feelings about the new NWU’s, although camo does seem silly. However, anything, and I do mean anything is an improvement on Burt Lancaster’s wardrobe. Leave that particular uniform of the day to inmates.
What’s the US Navy uniform with the Crackerjack cap and the blue demin prison shirt and trousers officially called?
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Was the ‘dungaree working uniform’ in my day.
If starched/pressed with Short Sleeve shirt and ‘patch pocket’ trousers, not a bad looking uniform.....
Another positive about the new navy uniform. It looks like they get to wear boots instead of boondockers which looked like set props from the old Frankenstein films.
Yeah....it’s got that Luftwaffe flip in the back....
The 8 point cover is all that’s needed.
yup, and its about time.
The army should go to Hugo Boss like Himmler did, then the army could have uniforms that would make the Marines look like Boy Scouts!
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