# what ever happened to Garrison dress?



## onecat (8 Mar 2003)

Garrison Dress

I‘ve always wondered what happed to garrison dress?  You know the dark green pants and dress shirt and that cam jacket?  I didn‘t like the cam jacket but I thought the garrison dress was shape looking for garrison type work.  Was it was cost reasons that they stopped using it, or was it something that happened when they started to have to distinctive look between the branchs of services?


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## Jackplumber (8 Mar 2003)

Garrison dress has been out for a good couple of years. I do remember those boots that came with it. They had a really high leg part. Looks really good if spit shone properly. I am glad it is gone thought. I prefer the combats.


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## Michael Dorosh (8 Mar 2003)

Land Force Western Area abolished the wear of Garrison Dress, and the rest of the Army followed suit (is that a pun?) afterwards. 

It was a bit of an insult to the Airborne Regiment; adopting it in the first place, I mean.  Up to then, only they wore high topped high-shine boots and camouflage smocks.  The Canadian Army seems to have made a habit of destroying its own traditions in the last 30 years.  All the "Royal" designations of the various corps were abolished upon unification, rifle regiments no longer wear black and red rank badges (except on ceremonial dress, which few regiments can afford to maintain anyway), etc.  

Even the adoption of the CF Green beret was silly; the green beret was the mark of Commando troops in WW II.

LFWA also abolished the wear of the forage cap if I am not mistaken, another traditional headgear predating World War One.  Our RSS WO made a habit of wearing his on parades (he was RCR and thus from out East).

Just another nail in the coffin containing our traditions and heritage.

The camo jacket was high waisted and the belt routinely wore just under the nipples instead of on the hips.  But at least it was a proper waistbelt.  Kind of funny to wear one with a garrison uniform and not with the CFs - the only time you wear one with CFs is if you are carrying a bayonet (or if you are in a kilt in summer shirt sleeve order).

The Garrison dress was not practical either, for stuff like weapons cleaning or vehicle maintenance - those boots would get all marked up if you had to crawl over an MLVW, even if you had coveralls on.  The jacket was way too hot to wear in an office, and it restricted your motion.  And the **** boots seemed to take forever to lace up, never mind keep spit shone.  And you weren‘t allowed to wear combat boots unless you had a medical chit preventing you from wearing the shiny ones.

Overall, a sharp looking uniform, but not a practical one.   We liked wearing the tan shirt and green pants because we thought it made us look like Marines!


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## Fishbone Jones (8 Mar 2003)

Well let‘s see if I can add to this. :warstory:  

The jump smock and boots were originally worn by the Airborne. With the inception of the SSF, in Pet, in 76, all SSF pers wore them. Albeit a cheap jump smock and boots. Everyone else still worn combat boots or ankle boots with the CF Work Dress ( the bus driver  uniform) which came in around 70 -71,or there abouts. One of the reasons given at the time was the excessive wear to and no replacement of combats. Some time down the line around 90 (could be wrong here) someone decided to try make everyone look cool    Hence, Garrison Dress. This consisted of a cam jacket (not a jump smock) and poorly designed high boots (not jump boots). Your Regimental (with Unit brass buckle) stable belt or a Garrison Belt with a black plastic buckle was worn with it. I never ever saw anyone wearing it under their tits! It was worn around the waist like any other belt. Although maybe this is why LFWA quit wearing it first, I‘d have to agree it would look pretty silly!   .
 I can‘t speak for all arms, but the armoured and the arty wore their black (armd) and blue(arty) berets with battle dress, in winter and Bush uniform, in summer. IG‘s wore forage caps as a sign of appointment in both corps. The CF Greens predated the DEU and was originally worn with forage caps. When we went to Greens we all switched to the forage cap in summer and the fur hat in winter. There was also a small transition period, after the forage cap, where everyone had to wear a green beret with CF Greens. This did not last long and it was only a few years before the Corps went back to the black beret for all dress. The policy extended through to the issue of the DEU (both green and tan). Also with the DEU‘s, we wear our black stable belt and Regimental brass, bayonets or not, as I believe most armd units still do. We normally only wear DEU on formal parades. There may be some local, one off, quirks I‘m not aware of, nor am I an expert on all units‘ dress policies. My dates may be a bit out, it‘s been a long, long time since I wore some of this stuff, but that‘s about it in a nutshell. :tank:


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## Michael Dorosh (8 Mar 2003)

Just a clarification; recceguy has pointed out a couple of my comments were not clear.

the Garrison Jacket was not at all like a jump smock; the jump smock was in a Canadian DPM pattern similar I would guess to the old Denison smock - both were the mark of the airborne soldier.

The Garrison Dress jacket was made from a new cam pattern - commonly called "duck hunter" because Canadian Tire sold garments made from the same material.  At the time, we had OD field uniforms, and cam garrison ones.

I just meant to say that the camouflage smock was the mark of the airborne, and introducing camo to everyone - even though it was a different pattern and different style of jacket - was still a bit of a slap in the face of the jumpers, and part of the tradition of denigrating our heritage as described above.

Check the fit of those waistbelts again, though - if you wore your waistbelt in the proper position on your body, the belt was right over top of the bottom pocked flaps.  I remember distinctly that the belts, when worn so as to clear the bottom pocket flaps, were well above the waistbelt on the work dress trousers.  Perhaps "nipple height" was an exaggeration, but not much of one.

The good thing about the Garrison jackets was that a lot of units could revive their WW II shoulder titles, as my unit did.


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## herbie (9 Mar 2003)

The garrison dress was introduced as work dress.  It looked better to be walking around dowtown in then combats and was also alot cheaper than combats.  It was introduced as a means to save money and to stop units from ironing and otherwise wearing there combats as a defacto garrison uniform.  The boots were garbage and many units opted to wear the combat boot with garrison uniform.  The problem was too many people treated it like another parade dress.  The troops were told not to do any work in there " work dress"  and so this cost saving measure ended up costing money.  I for one would like to see a return to a work ( in garrison ) uniform to save the combats for combat ( field )


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