Uniform Sanity Breaks Out in Fleet

After significant pissing and moaning about the new Navy Working Uniform's regulations for wearing it off base, a submariner has fixed the problem. MCPON West has come through for the blueshirts!

Military.com has the Navy News story. I know the subforce tends to have a lot more common sense than the rest of the fleet (Nukes excepted, of course) but this is really like Christmas in June.

Just be ready for the civilians to start screaming "THE INMATES ARE LOOSE!" when they see the aquaflage on Hampton Blvd. or 32nd Avenue.

Nonetheless, Good call MCPON West (SS)!

General Uniform Rant

Regular readers know that I spend a little time on the blogospere commenting on the current status of US military uniforms. Today I have 2 items:



USS Scranton Goes 100% Auquaflage!

In between cruises, the COB decided to get an eval bullet and coaxed/cajoled/leaned on the entire crew to go buy the new working uniform. I guess he got his bullet.


Air Farce Reinstates Good Conduct Medal

Let me get this straight. The one service that has the most gimme medals, by far, discontinued the Good Conduct Medal back in 2005? WTF,O? Apparently the AF honchos decided they didn't want to recognize what was already expected of the vaulted warriors of the warm bed and name brand steak sauce. Way to stick to the enlisted folks!

Fortunately, saner heads have prevailed and the GC medal is coming back!

When I served with the FMF, we had a young lady that had xfered over from the AF and had more fruit salad than several of the Gunnery Sergeants. She had a row of ribbons for every year of service. Different place.

Off base on Navy Uniforms

The flack is starting to rise in the ranks over the ridiculous uniform regs for when to wear the new NWU off of base. Back in the hazy past, I once heard of a group of students at Subschool in Groton that would sneak off base to a grinder shop near the shipyard in New London.

Since they were all under the rank of Petty Officer, nobody had a crow on their working jackets. We, I mean they just drove out the gate and looked confident and enjoyed a great grinder for lunch.

Man those grinders tasted great! Or so I hear.

Keep up the pressure people! The Navy brass needs to elevate the NWU to the same status as the Air Force and Army. Marines, we'll just have to say a prayer for you guys.

Latest name for the NWU: Aquaflage

Uniform Bad News.

The more I hear about the new intructions for wearing these blue camos, the more I begin to think they will go down in history being known as "those damn blue camos." We have all enjoyed the sweetness of getting out of the convict's suits but now come the bitterness of a "new" way.

• Goodbye ball caps. New rules will only allow the ballcap in your command area if approved by your CO. Leave the pier, go down to Subtrafac for training and you'd better have that 8 point cover. If I need to carry two covers, one will stay in the barracks.
• Goodbye foul weather jackets. This one is not so bad since I could never get one when I needed it anyway. Every queer in the sonar shack had one but God forbid some poor seaman in Deck Div get one to work (aka chip, paint, chip, etc.) in topside. BTW, what ever became of those nylon flight jackets issued to CO's, XO's and COB's? (Not to mention the Chop and SKC.)
• Since we couldn't roll up our sleeves the right way, we get to roll our sleeves like the damned Army. Not a big gripe, just different. I think the video mentions some sort of damage control usage for the new method.

Sorry to see the ballcaps sidelined. The subfleet sailors really stand out around the base with the dolphins on the hat.

Navy Unit Patches Emerge From the Shadows

Below is the latest video on the wearing of the new camo uniform has a startling revelation: Navy unit patches will be allowed to worn on the right breast pocket. Unit patches in the Army have played an important part in unit camaraderie, cohesion and pride while the Navy's patches were relegated to name tags and ships plaques,unless, of course, you serve in the semi-autonomous, self-superior naval air forces.

This is a fairly big deal for the Navy. I wonder how this will impact the fleet. The design of these patches themselves could be a problem in itself. While most surface sea commands tend to use the heraldic crest format, the subfleet tends to be very graphic design oriented or to use even commercially inclined design. The aviation community varies from cartoons to lewd.

My guess is that some of the airdale squadron patches will have to be reigned in. We'll have to see a NAVINSTR message about wearing only command approved patches on the NWU.

Congratulations, Navy. One more step toward sanity! Now, if we could only wear the damn things where someone might see them.

Navy Keeps Camos Onbase

Rumors are starting to circulate about how the Navy brass intends to treat the new Navy Working Uniform (NWU). While us blueshirts were dressed as convicts "'scaped off tha farm," it seemed to make some sense that the needs of the Navy were not met when some A-Gang 3rd class strolled into the quickie mart covered in grease or "gray"water.

The brass made sure to keep us denizens from below the anchor away from the prying eyes of the public. I guess they were afraid the local cops would mistake us for fence jumpers from the penintentary. But with a new uniform and a new "look", I had hoped we could get past one of the last remenants of bleushirt discrimination.

Apparently not, according to Navy Times. The brass will restrict the camo NWU to base and vehicle only.

The shame of it is, now the O-Gang and the chiefs are confined to base or car too! Lets see how long this lasts.

The maritime forces leadership needs to wake up to reality. Prohibiting Marines and Sailors from wearing their work uniform off the base does not increase you combat readiness one iota. We are a military at war and we don't have time for this petty bullshit.

New Navy Uniforms, Every Man A Chief

Have you seen the new "service" uniforms? Either there was a bad case of chief's envy or we need to look more like the Marines. Just look at it. Now don't get me wrong, I hated the ice cream man service whites. The service dress blues made you look like Heinrich Himmler's valet or LAPD.

These look like either military school rejects or Korean Coast Guard.

I do understand the attraction of the Marine Charlies. I had the opportunity to wear them when I was on the green side. But here's the rub: Marines tend to have a V-shaped torso (as does this nice young catalog model) This probably has something to do with all that extra PT they do.

Now envision what your rotund FTG (SS) that can barely make it through the main hatch will look like with triple chins. Got it?

Although, the new camo's (why camo? who you hiding from? Man overboard should be real fun!) do relegate the dixie cup to dress occasions.