Uniforms

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In juvat's Monday post, the topic of uniforms came up, in a roundabout way, mostly in the comments. It all arose from a Tube o' You video featuring various USAF bandsmen performing various renditions of "The Air Force Song," ya know, "off we go into the wild blue yonder, etc." Oddly enough, it's a song I don't much care for, mostly for "reasons" which I may or may not have discussed in the past. (As a morale building thing it was sung nightly at Air Force Officer Training School, a non-voluntary thing I might add. I suppose it was to improve morale ...)

Anyhoo, Suz, the Chant's reigning Medical Officer, left the following (avec juvat's answer below that.)

Now, as you all should know, I was a sergeant in the Air Force, a Master Sergeant towards the end, but a non-commissioned officer for twenty of my twenty-four years. What's one thing that drives a good sergeant batshit crazy?

Well, uniform violations immediately springs to mind. Wearing it wrong, wearing it dirty, missing pieces of it, adding unauthorized pieces to it, it's a "sergeant thing." Some officers liked to play the game as well. (But not fighter pilots, egads, them and their flight suits, it's like a license to look cool without being sharply dressed. There oughta be a law ...)

But I digress.

Contrary to what our M.O. says above, to wit - "Uniforms are articles of clothing whose mission is to keep a multitude of bodies decent in mixed company." Well, yes and no. While common decency is a thing ...

"Who told you that you were naked?" Genesis 3:11

It ain't the only thing.

Way back in the day, fighting units didn't really have any uniforms (and some still don't, more on that in a bit). It must have been rather confusing to have a few hundred (or thousand) guys all slashing and bashing each other when they were all dressed pretty much the same.

"Oops, sorry Achilles, thought you were one of them."

So some uniformity, to tell who is who, was needed. At first it might have been a strip of cloth tied around one arm, everyone on one side having the same color. Also sprigs of the local flora might be sported in one's cap.

"No, no, no, Carl, hit the guys who DON'T have a sprig of Douglas fir in their caps." 

That, not being sufficient to the day, led to armies all wearing the same color uniform. Which was more or less the case up to a certain point. Sometimes the style of one's headgear and/or the cut of one's uniform would let you gauge who was who.

The Duke of Wellington rather liked the British light cavalries' distinctive headgear in Spain. A crested helmet (the Tarleton helmet) which was very different from the shako the French lights wore.

Tarleton Helmet
Source

So of course some higher up decided to change that and give the British light cavalry a shako which looked remarkably like the French one.

D'oh.

So, uniforms help you tell the good guys from the bad guys, more or less. (Imagine the confusion during the early months of our own Civil War where some Confederates wore blue and some Federals wore gray and the Zouaves dressed in various (and very much alike) ways ...

The Brierwood Pipe
Winslow Homer
(5th New York Zouaves - PD)

Maybe they're actually Louisiana Zouaves?

Source

Hell, in the heat of combat, who can tell?

Eventually both sides calmed down and went to more, ahem, uniform uniforms. (See what I did there?)

Then we get to Ukraine, where the Ukrainians wear basically the same uniforms as the Russians ...

So we're back to using colored arm bands to tell everyone apart.

Uniforms then, and somewhat now, served a morale purpose as well. If your uniform looked good, you'd look good (or at least feel you looked good).

White crossbelts made you look broader in the chest, tall caps (some of bear skin) made you look taller. It was meant to make you feel like a warrior and to make the enemy a little bit scared of you.

Then again, those were parade ground uniforms ...

In battle you'd be wearing coveralls instead of fancy trousers, a greatcoat to cover up the fancy jacket, you'd put all the fancy plumes in your knapsack, and wrap your fancy hat in an oilskin. All that finery costs money you know!

On Parade
(PD)

On Campaign
Source

There are military units which still don't wear uniforms, think guerillas and the like. They need to blend in with the populace, so, no uniforms. Which is why a lot of them get shot when captured. Geneva Convention, as I recall, mandates that combatants wear something which marks them out as combatants. Sucks to be them, I suppose. Just don't get caught, right?

Now don't get me started on the Space Force uniforms. I Googled those after dinner, what I saw almost made me lose my dinner. Argh.

As to bandsmen being "senior" in rank, I say go back to the old days where they were simply bandsmen, non-combatants. Good pay but they couldn't be schlepping about the PX ordering the actual line doggies around.

Yes, I've seen it happen.

Who has the best looking uniforms? Duh, the United States Marine Corps. Second best, the Army's new "pinks and greens." Based on a WWII uniform, looks good and has tradition behind it. The Navy comes in third, ya gotta like those "choker whites."

Pinks and Greens
Source

A fine example of a naval officer in choker whites.
Our own Captain Carroll F. LeFon Jr.
(And his Gorram sword.)

I do believe the Air Force spawned the Space Force just so our uniforms weren't the worst of all. No, the "Guardians" have that covered. (Same name as a baseball team? Geez.)

That's enough for now, I could go on and talk about General McPeak and his idiotic uniform changes in my Air Force, but my stomach already hurts from looking at those Space Force uniforms.

I bid thee, adieu.

Author's Note: Yup, The Muse is still absent. I'm thinking she's not going to be back for a while, but ya never know.