U.S. Operational Army Combat Uniform

[tomahawk6]

Bring back the OD colored uniforms that preceded camo for garrison wear.

 

[PuckChaser]

Are they allowing you to smoke crack at work now?  ;D

If someone can run a city doing it, why can't I do Sigs stuff doing it?  >

 

[quadrapiper]

Ya I get you.  I just have trouble with someone who lists Canoe O as one of his/her career potions having any say in how a real military member should be dressed.

You hardly need a PRes/Regular MOSID, or the B contracts/postings that go with, to recognize the ridiculousness of wearing (out) expensive specialist kit as an office or dirty-work uniform.

For CADPAT, read also NCD - I'd be quite happy to wear something less specialized than that rig if it meant a few more dollars going to something more useful than equipping shorebound CIC with fire retardant uniforms. Speaking of my branch, there's IIRC seven thousand people who definitely don't need anti-IR/fire retardant/whatever kit, barring the few involved with PCTs.

If it makes you feel better, think of it as a lightly informed fellow taxpayer's comment.

To expand on this though all Sup Techs/Clerks/Cooks ect posted to a field unit need to have CADPAT in their SOI because, suprise suprise, they go to the field and do the whole Army camping who haw dilly.

Would it make more sense to issue a field package of CADPAT, to be worn as required, and a cheaper working uniform that can be worn ragged when not out in the weeds? Or would the savings not match the hassle?

 

[OldSolduer]

Would add to that everyone doing dirty, rough, or active work while not in the field: bet an embrace of coveralls and some sort of "army Carhartts" would help with savings. What a body in Supply needs to be wearing CADPAT for is beyond me.

We used to have an order of dress for the garrison - Work Dress and it morphed into Garrisons Dress.

Is anyone telling the Dress Commitee "we need a garrison dress"?

:crickets:

 

[Kirkhill]

I really liked my wooly pully with shooting patches.  It outlasted my service by 10 or 15 years.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Dungarees and denim shirts anyone ?

I see your naval bias at work here, but yes, absolutely: D's and denim is a goob work combination of clothes, especially now that you have the ball cap as an approved headgear in the Navy. Much better than ruining perfectly good NCD's.

I really liked my wooly pully with shooting patches.  It outlasted my service by 10 or 15 years.

Yes, wooly pully's: The best dam gear issued by the CAF EVER! Which probably explains why they ceased using it (too many satisfied customers). Still have both of mine, wear them in spring and fall for yard work, and after nearly 30 years, they still don't even look broken in. Must have been invented by a  iper:

 

[Kirkhill]

I see your naval bias at work here, but yes, absolutely: D's and denim is a goob work combination of clothes, especially now that you have the ball cap as an approved headgear in the Navy. Much better than ruining perfectly good NCD's.

Yes, wooly pully's: The best dam gear issued by the CAF EVER! Which probably explains why they ceased using it (too many satisfied customers). Still have both of mine, wear them in spring and fall for yard work, and after nearly 30 years, they still don't even look broken in. Must have been invented by a  iper:

And there you have it.  A serviceable non-combat uniform. A wooly pully, a denim shirt and a pair of dungarees/jeans/chinos/cargopants.  Add a stable belt, a pair of steel toed boots and a set of coveralls in CF Green(oops my error - whatever colour you like) you have a complete uniform.

Head to Mark's Work Wearhouse and you pick up everything but the wooly pully today.....

 

[Edward Campbell]

The old CF "work dress," AKA the gas station/pump jockey uniform ...

                 

                        ... was eminently practical, right up until about the third day after it was issued when people decided to "gussy it up" a bit at a time, until it morphed into "garrison dress"...

                                   

During the late 1970s I authorized a "unit lines dress" that consisted of: work dress trousers, combat boots, ankle boots or "sand slappers" (work boots) as appropriate for the task at hand, T-shirts and berets. I also authorized sub-unit t-shirts (we had them at individual expense, and they were pretty popular, mainly for sports ~ blue, green and grey, depending on the sub-unit, with a silk screened sub-unit crest). Sweaters, jackets and parkas could be worn, again as appropriate ... but, all within unit lines, only, of course. All soldiers had lockers at work and many (most?) came and went in civvies and changed "at work."

That seemed to make everyone ~ even the RSM and sub-unit SMs ~ reasonably happy: we 'worked," most days, within unit lines. When I wanted a parade it was in 1, 2 or 3 order of dress or, now and again, in combats with all kit, vehicles and weapons. Soldiers wore coveralls for dirty work, combats in the field, and "unit line dress" for day-to-day work within unit lines. If called to go to e.g. the base pay office a soldier could change into S3s, CF work dress or civvies. (Someone once complained about one of my NCOs coming to a base office in civvies, "I was in greasy coveralls," he replied, "would you rather I wore those to your nice clean office?" The complaints stopped.)

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I agree there was nothing wrong with the design of the old work dress, and its similar replacement in the Navy after the DEU's came in use. In the Navy, we used them as our shipboard dress before the NCD was adopted in the 90's and that's were the problem lied: They were 100% polyester and melted if you just looked at them sideways with heat in your eyes. I know because I had one Jacket melt solidly to my pants when I accidentally backed up into a hot galley stove top for ashore few seconds in '81. I started wearing full cotton underwear and T-shirts under my work dress after that.

 

[jollyjacktar]

If I may interject here.  There are as I can see cries from certain corners that NCD/CADPAT should not be worn by personnel employed in garrison as they're expensive to replace when worn out, just because...  OK, that is fair comment and fine rationale. 

But, but, some of those same self members here are suggesting we adopt a working rig for those who are not "operational in the field/at sea" while in their daily jobs.  OK, we turn back the clock and adopt a garrison rig or denim and jeans etc as required to get the non-operational bas-tards out of peacock dress.  Well that to my thinking would be even more expensive with having to source and supply a whole new order of dress, again.

One cannot have their cake and eat it too, can they? 

 

[Loachman]

Actually, they can.

What they cannot do is eat their cake and have it too.

This is probably the most commonly-misquoted cliche/proverb of all time.

There endeth the lesson.

I think that it is stupid to re-introduce a work/base/garrison dress. We have enough uniform turmoil right now. More is not a good thing.

When I was G3 Aviation in SSF HQ in the early nineties, I encountered two female corporals manning the former Commissionaire booth in the entrance to E-1, the HQ building at the time. Both were wearing CF green dress shirts, green woolly-pullies, and green trousers. One had the pin-on collar rank insignia and rankless slip-ons, and the other had no collar insignia but work dress rank on her slip-ons. Being somewhat baffled, I asked the FSM which was correct. "It depends upon the trousers that they were wearing", he said. The rank location had to match the bottom half of the uniform rather than the top.

Nutty, I thought.

On another occasion, I saw a whole bunch of NCMs milling about on the top floor, no two dressed alike. As the FSM was standing nearby, wearing a slightly mirthful expression, and I was curious, I asked him what was going on. He was about to parade seventy-five people through the Commander's O-Group, each in a different variant of authorized uniforms. He said that he could have probably shown twice that number, but he ran out of available soldiers before he ran out of uniform variations.

Nutty, I still think. Do you want that nonsense again?

Keep it simple.

Combat clothing can be made cheaper. It's the stitchery that drives the price up. Every stitching operation adds cost. Look at the older version, and all of the stitchery on the boxy pockets, the epaulet (chestolet?) and slip-on, the ridiculous tabby thing on the shoulder to which flags are attached, the drawer strings, and that stupid inner pocket. Flat pockets and Velcro patches are so much cheaper.

 

[cupper]

I was always told that you never wore rank collar dogs with rank slip-ons.

If you were wearing the CF linden green shirt, you wore rank collar dogs. If wearing the blue grey work dress shirt, you wore rank slip-ons. 

 

[dimsum]

I was always told that you never wore rank collar dogs with rank slip-ons.

If you were wearing the CF linden green shirt, you wore rank collar dogs. If wearing the blue grey work dress shirt, you wore rank slip-ons.

I've always wanted to ask:  Why the Army NCMs had to be different and wear rank collar dogs and blank slip-ons on DEU? 

 

[cupper]

I've always wanted to ask:  Why the Army NCMs had to be different and wear rank collar dogs and blank slip-ons on DEU?

'cause we're special. :nod: ;D >

 

[Blackadder1916]

I've always wanted to ask:  Why the Army NCMs had to be different and wear rank collar dogs and blank slip-ons on DEU?

We were not different; everybody else was different.  We kept the same rank insignia worn by everyone with "CF greens".  It was the sailors and the other guys who wanted to be different.

 

[jollyjacktar]

'cause we're special. :nod: ;D >

In an Olympic sort of way? 

 

[Loachman]

I was always told that you never wore rank collar dogs with rank slip-ons.

Which is consistent with my sweater story.

If you were wearing the CF linden green shirt, you wore rank collar dogs. If wearing the blue grey work dress shirt, you wore rank slip-ons.

The light green shirt was often worn with work dress, hence the rank insignia being dependent upon the trousers as they would have been the only actual work dress item.

 

[cupper]

The light green shirt was often worn with work dress, hence the rank insignia being dependent upon the trousers as they would have been the only actual work dress item.

I don't recall ever wearing Dress trousers while wearing the light green shirt (short sleeve) with sweater, only work dress pants. Grant you, I never did an office job, so dress of the day for me was always work dress trousers and which ever shirt was prescribed for the given situation. Usually Cpl's and Pte's wore the grey blue work dress shirt, MCpl's and above wore the light green short sleeve shirt. Sweater was worn when winter dress was in effect.

And woe be upon the person who wore the short sleeve shirt with rank slip-ons and rank collar dogs in summer. :facepalm:

 

[cupper]

In an Olympic sort of way? 

Can't get any more special than that. 8)

 

[Pusser]

We used to have an order of dress for the garrison - Work Dress and it morphed into Garrisons Dress.

Is anyone telling the Dress Commitee "we need a garrison dress"?

:crickets:

Actually, I would say that.  If saving can be achieved by reservng the expensive stuff for the tasks for which it is designed and wearing out cheaper stuff where possible, then that makes perfect sense to me.  I've never bought into the argument that having too many uniforms is a bad thing.  If you need a certain type of clothing for a certain job, then you should have it and I don't care how full your closet gets - it's not like anyone is asking members to pay for it.  It's not like you have to pack and take everything with you whenever you go someplace (at least it shouldn't be that way).

Then there is the question of professionalism.  I was appalled when I saw Facebook pictures of the sons of a friend of mine being sworn into a Reserve unit.  All the candidates were in suits and ties, yet the CO and RSM (the "Command Team") were in CADPAT!  Really?  A formal event where everybody else is dressed up and these guys, these leaders, are dressed to go jump in the mud?  Disgusting.

Where things get silly is when we apply ridiculous standards on uniforms so we can use them for tasks for which they were never intended.  Case in point:  parade standards applied to work dress.  It use to drive me nuts as a Divisional Officer to see sailors "forced" to go to clothing stores to buy new work dress to go on course.  They couldn't exchange their current work dress because there was nothing wrong with it, other than it had been worked in and had a few paint and oil stains (funny how that happens when you paint and oil things...).  Essentially, they had to pay out of pocket in order to pass a course (or at least have a less miserable time of it).  It makes imminent sense to have appropriate clothing to fit a task.  The trouble is applying imminent sense is not always as simple as it should be.