The US Navy is the proud owner of arguably the most impractical set of officers' uniforms in the world, and when they get a chance to fix it, they make it worse.
They got rid of the good looking and practical service dress khaki and kept tropical summer short (for those times when your ship docks at one of the great pyramids). They tossed cotton trop khaki long and replaced it with Certified Navy Twill, perhaps the worst uniform ever worn by an American officer or chief. CNT was unbearably hot and snagged just by looking at it and stained just by passing within 100 feet of anything dirty, but it had the redeeming quality of instantly melting onto your skin, and then bursting into flames and burning down to your bones if you were caught near a fire.
We had to wear service dress blue or aviator green when it was 90 degrees and 100% humidity because it was "winter time."
Navy flight suits were, until recently, considered shameful and evil and no one could wear them off base ("Unclean! Unclean!"). Rank patches were forbidden. If you were flying and needed to make a quick run into town to get chow for your crew, you had to change back into the uniform of the day, then change back into your zoom bag again when back through the gate. A violation brought you and your CO before the base CO -- a sure way to an "Entirely satisfactory in present grade" FITREP.
Flight jackets were forbidden away from the flight line, making for those delightful trips in a -20 wind chill in just your summer flight suit when you went back to the Q or to the flight galley. (We heard rumors that the USAF was actually proud of their flight gear, but we discounted them as the propoganda that must surely have been.)
Believe it or not, there used to be a Uniform Office in the Pentagon. The personnel spent their time sitting around a large table and suggesting how uniforms could be made less practical and more uncomfortable. Don't know if they still exist.
So now the Navy is proposing new BDUs, CUs, WDUs, WKs, DBCs. and BVDs. Doesn't surprise me a bit. I am especially taken by the new Navy digital pattern blue and grey BDU, which is supposed to make you invisible against the background of your ship's bulkheads. Whew! THERE's a relief! So when the enemy SSK puts a Shipwreck SSM into your CV they won't be able to actually see you as you scamper energetically across the flight deck, beating your best previous PRT score. I feel safer already.
Seriously, folks, the Navy is always changing its uniforms. I'm just waiting until three-cornered hats come back and my blues will again be legal.
ip568
