Surrendering in Afghanistan. Maybe the Senate has learned history even if the President has not.

Make no mistake about it, the "peace" that's being considered in Afghanistan isn't a peace.  It's a withdrawal which will be followed by the collapse of the Afghan government and a return to power of the Taliban. 

Saigon, 1975.

It's the helicopter from the Saigon Embassy roof all over again, after a fictional peace with Hanoi, except in this instance, it's worse.  Much worse.

Which is why its refreshing to see the Republican controlled Senate find its backbone, as noted here in the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Senate, in a bipartisan rebuke to President Trump’s foreign policy, voted overwhelmingly to advance legislation drafted by the majority leader to express strong opposition to the president’s withdrawal of United States military forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

The 68-to-23 vote to cut off debate ensures that the amendment, written by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and backed by virtually every Senate Republican, will be added to a broader bipartisan Middle East policy bill expected to easily pass the Senate next week.

I hope the Senate's view prevails.

It's frequently noted that the war in Afghanistan is the longest running war in American history, which it is if you don't count the Indian Wars as a single war.  If you do that, no other American war even compares as those wars started sometime in the 1600s and concluded, depending upon how you look at it, in 1890 or 1916.  They're a bit longer.

But the war in Afghanistan is pretty darned long, to be sure. 

Donald Rumsfeld, who reprising the role of Robert Strange McNamara chose to ignore the lessons of history and presume that the United States was not subject to them.

A lot of that can be laid at the feet of the second President George Bush, or perhaps more accurately at the feet of his controversial Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.  Rumsfeld took the view that all prior laws of war were no longer applicable to the United States, and therefore even though we knew that Al Queda was headquartered in Afghanistan and sheltered by the Taliban, we could commit an absolute minimum of force to the war there, fight the war with a few specialists and air power, rely on dubious native allies, while taking on a second war with Iraq for what turned out to be dubious reasons, and still win the war in Afghanistan.

Carl von Causewitz looking on with disdain at Donald Rumsfeld from history.

Carl von Clausewitz would have whacked Rumsfeld with his riding crop for thinking such a stupid thing.  

Classic military Clausewitzian thought would have held that having determined that war in Afghanistan was necessary, which it was, it was then incumbent upon the U.S. to use overwhelming force to crush the enemy immediately and leave Afghanistan basically compliant in the wake of a crushing defeat of the radical Islamists.  Instead, we chose to engage basically with special forces and air power while we built up a force to attack Iraq and left much of the ground fighting to Islamic militias of dubious dependability.  That in turn meant that we didn't get around to really committing until well after the war in Iraq, which we didn't have to engage in, in the first place, had become a second guerrilla war which in turn meant that no how badly the Taliban did in combat they'd learned that they could keep on, keeping on.

U.S. Special Forces troops with Northern Alliance troops. The Northern Alliance was a genuinely anti Taliban force, and truly useful in the field, but it wasn't the sort of force that was any more likely to result in a stable government long term than the Montagnards were in Southeast Asia.  Using them was wise and necessary.  Leaving the war nearly entirely to them was not.

Since that time we've fought a war of decreasing commitment sort of hoping against hope that the Afghan government we supported and created after the Taliban were driven out of Kabul would be able to take over, much like we hoped that successive South Vietnamese governments would be able to take over the Vietnam War after 1968.

That didn't work then and its obviously not working now.

Which has lead to the conclusion that we need to do is dress up a defeat, like we did in Vietnam, and get out.  

Of course getting out meant the ultimate fall of our ally, the Republic of Vietnam, and the installation of a brutal communist regime that still remains in power.  The analogy there probably ends, as Vietnam isn't Afghanistan and it never posed any direct threat to the United States.*  Afghanistan has been used as the headquarters for a global radical Islamic war on the world with the goal to establish a new Caliphate and subject the world to Islam.  Hanoi just wanted to subject Vietnam to communism, which it did, but which it is now loosing due to the pervasive nature of American pop and consumer culture.**

If and when we leave Afghanistan, if we haven't succeeded there, it will return to the control of the Taliban in short, probably very short, order.  Compelling the Afghan government to include the Taliban in the government will be no more successful than Hanoi's promise not to resume the war with Saigon, or the fusion of the Royal and Pathet Lao armies was.  The result is inevitable.

Of course, a person might also ask if the same results as the Vietnam War might also be inevitable.  If we haven't won after an eighteen year commitment, why would we win now?

Well, the numbers are part of the reason.

The United States has less than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan.  At the absolute height of our commitment, in 2011, when we "surged", we had 110,000 men there, which we built up to rapidly after we crossed the 20,000 number in mid 05 and which then fell off rapidly, falling below 20,000 again in 2014.

10th Mountain Division troops in Afghanistan in 2005.

Now, before we go on, something about this should be obvious.  A country which proposed to unseat its de facto, if not de jure, government of the size of Afghanistan but which didn't even get up over the division level commitment for the first three plus years of that was either acting stupidly or wasn't serious.  And a nation that would commit over 100,000 men for a very brief interval and then presume, when it was known that the war wasn't won, that everything would be fine, also wasn't acdting particularly rationally.  The U.S. should have committed that 100,000 men in the first three months of the war in which case we probably could have totally withdrawn by 2011.

Donald Rumsfeld, here's your sign.

United States Drug Enforcement personnel burning  hashish as part of an American policing operation in an ancillary quasi military operation guaranteed to make enemies of the rural populace.

The thought was, of course, or rather the naive hope was, that the Afghan army we built would take over.  Just like the ARVN. That in fact was not an irrational hope in the late 1960s, but in the case of the Afghan army, given the way we went about it, it certainly was.

Soldier of the U.S. Army (Michigan National Guard) on patrol with Afghans and, in German desert camouflage, Latvian soldier

Afghanistan has had an army since 1709, and a fairly good one in the 1950s, but that all came apart following the Communist coup that took over the country in the 1970s. The army fell apart and the country fell into civil war, from which its never emerged.  Reconstituting a real army after a twenty five year gap has proven extremely difficult and like most armies that exist in a scenario in which a foreign power is putting them together, it's been infiltrated by the enemy.  It's going to take quite a while before that army can stand on its own.  By comparison again, the French put together what would become the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the early 1950s and it wasn't until the late 1960s that it was capable of somewhat standing on its own, although it never really achieved that status.  And like the ARVN its not only has very loyal soldiers, but it's subject to being accused of being a colonial puppet by its clearly nativist opponent.  So while it has 174,000 men, it can't field that number as an effective fighting force.

Afghan commandos waiting for airlift from Russian made helicopters.  With their western airborne transportation and American arms and equipment they bear a worrisome resemblance to crack ARVN units of the late Vietnam War.

Indeed, it's lost over half the country.

So we've lost, right?

Well, we might have, but before we give up, we better at least try to win.  And we can do that.

Indeed, there's no doubt that a second surge, like the first one, would reoccupy the country and drive the Taliban out, probably into Pakistan, in the case of the survivors.  We can debate what to do about that, but serving notice on Pakistan that its border will be regarded as fictional would be one thing to do.  Pakistan isn't going to fight the Untied States under any circumstances, and indeed India would dearly love it to even suggest that it would.  An effort of that type would reoccupy the country and, if a remaining commitment of at least 50,000 men stayed for at time, as in a decade, the country would have a chance.

A chancier, but also probably likely to work means, would be to commit a large, but lesser, force of 50,000 to 60,000 and do the same thing.  Of course, that's not a small commitment either.

The odds are better, however, that we'll simply abandon it, and our effort there, and live to regret the consequences.

________________________________________________________________________________

*See, however, Was The Domino Theory Right? and Looking at the Vietnam War differently.  Not as a war but a campaign in the Cold War.

**Whatever the results of the war have been, the inevitable trend of Vietnam is exhibited by the presence of a Victoria's Secret in Hanoi and V-pop in the country at large.  The South Vietnamese never ended up embracing Communism and the North Vietnamese are abandoning it.

But wait, Captain Crabby, maybe you've missed the point. More Pinks & Greens.

Signal Corps lieutenant, World War Two.

On Monday, I ran this item criticizing, I guess, the Army's adoption of a new Army Green Uniform of the old officers' Pink & Green variety:

Lex Anteinternet: Pinks and Greens: Having a taste for history, and a dislike the of the last two Army dress uniforms, you'd think that I'd like the Army having gone t...

Could I have missed the point?

The same Signal Corps officer in France.

I surely could have.

And that point might start with why is the Army doing this anyway?

Well, dear reader, you might have already surmised that's because the dress blue uniform is ugly and soldiers don't like it, but that's only a partial answer, actually.

Indeed, the dress blue uniform isn't going anywhere.  It'll remain the dress blue uniform, resuming the status it had prior to it becoming the only dress uniform.  So there it will go once again, back to a presumably fairly rarely worn and not daily worn uniform.  One might hope, in that context, that the Army starts making it in a decent wool fabric again so it doesn't have the polyester disco look its acquired in recent years.

But as its not going anywhere, what's up?

Well, what's up is an intent to return to the pre mint green dress shirt days when soldiers who weren't on field duty or some sort of fatigue or quasi fatigue duty wore a uniform that had a military bearing and was appropriate for the office or non fatigue duty.

And that's actually a majority of soldiers, most days.

It's not that Army Green Uniform with the mint green shirt couldn't be worn that way.  It could, and it was supposed to have been, but the uniform was so unrelentingly ugly that soldiers hated it from the top to the bottom and didn't want to wear it if they could avoid it.  Given that, over time, after its introduction even office clerks took to wearing the heavy BDU uniform if they could get away with it, and they were soon able to get away with it as officers liked the Army Green Uniform no more than the men did.

And on top of it, the lightweight mint green shirt and poly blend pants were such anemic apparel that they really weren't terribly suited to much in the way of diverse use to start with, which prior semi dress uniforms had been.

To illustrate what we mean, we probably need to go back to the uniform of the late 1920s where the story of the Pink & Green uniform originates.

Black cavalryman of the 10th Cavalry Rgt at Ft. Riley Kansas in 1942.   He's wearing field gear and the khaki uniform, without tie, that was a field and semi dress uniform, theoretically, at the time.

At that time, the Army returned to issuing a summer khaki cotton uniform, which it had done prior to World War One, when just before that it phased that out in favor of an olive cotton uniform for hot weather.  The new khaki uniform was a sharp looking uniform, designed to be worn in the field in hot weather as a combat uniform and, with black tie, in non field situation when a coat wasn't required. For that matter, as the soldier was not to normally wear decorations on the service shirts, wool OD or khaki, both were meant to be worn with a service coat when required.  Technically ties were actually supposed to be worn in field situations, which was flat out silly, and which was widely disregarded right from the onset.

Solider of the 10th Cavalry at Ft. Riley in 1942. He's wearing the summer uniform appropriate for most things at that time, including a khaki colored garrison cap.

Anyhow, while that was field uniform, it was highly suitable for wear by clerks, medical personnel, people assigned office duty, etc., whenever the need arose. So was, we would note, the wool equivalent, which was worn the same way. About the only difference between the two uniforms for that purpose is that the wool uniform was always worn with a tie in an office etc. setting but the khaki one was not.

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Trailer from the movie A Soldiers Story which does a really good job of depicting hot weather uniforms of the World War Two period.

Now this may seem to be just what I was critique above, the wearing of  field uniform for office, etc. settings, but we have to keep in mind that in the era which we are discussing the Service Coat was an integral part of the uniform and was suitable for most dress occasions.  Indeed, most enlisted men never owned a dress blue uniform.  And when World War Two came, things changed.

While technically the khaki uniform remained a combat uniform throughout the war, it very rapidly ceased to be in actual practice.  You can find photographs of it being worn that way in the US in training until 1942 or so, but not really after that.  The wool equivalent, ie., shirt and trousers, did keep on keeping on in that role and was part of every soldiers combat kit during World War Two and a bit beyond.  But even before the war the Service Coat had left for various Field Jackets, the final expression of which was the M1943, which was only however one of many such jackets.  At the same time herring bone tweed cotton trousers and shirts came in for fatigue uniforms (something now entirely absent from the military service for the most part) that replaced a prior uniform that was blue denim.  That's significant in that that uniform was soon altered for field use and worn in hot regions, like Italy or the South Pacific, and the concept of cotton field uniforms really took off.  So at a point very early in the war the khaki uniform was more of a semi dress uniform for the summer months and the wool uniform, when worn with tie, was pretty much the same (while retaining a combat role) for the rest of the year.

Now, all this may raise a big "so what?" but even by World War Two most soldiers were not combat troops, something that's often conveniently forgotten.  In the American way of war, material matters more than men and the goal is to use it profusely in order to defeat the enemy without getting men killed, to the extent possible.  This became very much the case between World War One and World War Two when this thinking really took off and it was fully American, and British, doctrine by the Second World War.  This reflected both nations democratic natures and the view of the democratic populace that they didn't want their sons killed if at all possible.  And, for what its worth, it also partially explains the huge casualties endured by the Germans, Soviets and Japanese in the war as their leadership in large measure simply didn't care about that and didn't have to answer to the public.*  The answer to the "so what" question, therefore, is that it is important for a modern Army to have a suitable military uniform for the many, many troops who don't serve in combat. The khaki uniform and the service uniform of World War Two was just that, and that uniform remained in that use until the early 1950s.

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1950s era film depicting basic training showing fatigue and khaki uniforms in use at the time.

After the 1930s era service uniforms were phased out in the late 1950s, the Army Green Uniform and the new khaki uniform took over that role, at first.  Indeed the new khaki uniform that replaced the old one was very widely worn at that time, and during the cooler months of the year the Army Green Uniform, which featured a khaki colored shirt at first, filled that role as well, although in the Army both uniforms were already seeing less use and the period Army "fatigue" uniform began to fill the role that the Service Uniform and earlier khakis had previously, often after being stiffly starched.  After the mint green shirts came in and the khaki uniform went out the change was enormous and even soldiers who fired nothing more dangerous than a typewriter often came into work wearing Battle Dress Uniforms, a fact which actually caused the BDU uniform to be lightened as clerks found the uniform too heavy for office work.  After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the US an absurd order trying to make everyone feel like a combat warrior allowed combat uniforms to be worn even in the Pentagon, even though the U.S. had managed to get through World War Two requiring dress uniforms in the Pentagon.

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Army film in basic training circa 1966 in which how the khaki uniform was in daily use can be seen.  In most of the instances in which it appears here, today the combat uniform would be worn instead.

So what, a person might ask once again. Well, here's ultimately why it matters.  The Army has found its way around to noting what the Marine Corps had never forgotten, appearances and standards of dress matter.  Most non combat troops wearing combat uniforms look a little silly and they begin to look like they're wearing a sack of potatoes or pajamas, that's not a good look.  And frankly, as noted above, the combat uniform that came into being starting in 1943 is a comfortable one for combat, but not for the office itself.

Which brings back the question of why any change was actually necessary, if it was. Well, it was because soldiers won't wear an ugly uniform unless compelled to, and the Army Green Uniform, particularly after the adoption of the mint green uniform, was so ugly that a service wide conspiracy to do away with  the need to wear it meant that it simply ceased being used. 

The prior uniforms, which were better looking were worn. And they were better looking as, ironically, they were closer to the combat uniform itself.

That may sound ironic or even hypocritical but its' true.  Indeed, at first the Army Service Uniform was the combat uniform. . .theoretically, and the khaki uniform was a field uniform.  But as they dated back to a prior type of uniform in which the service uniform was closer to a dress uniform, and not the other way around, they had a sharper appearance. The Army forgot this lesson with the Army Green Uniform which was intentionally supposed to more closely resemble business attire and whoever even thought up the mint green shirt had completely lost his military bearings.

The old Pink & Green uniform had that military bearing.  And therefore the Army hopes to reinstate a uniform that doesn't cause clerks to feel like they have to come into the office every day looking like they're about to parachute into Normandy.  That is a worthwhile endeavor, my earlier criticism not withstanding, and if it succeeds, it will have been worth the effort.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*This might be best illustrated by the German and Russian armies of World War Two in comparison to World War One.  Both armies had been at the service of Imperial regimes in the Great War and and while neither nation was  democracy (the Russian one much less so), the position of the crown as a supposed caring sovereign ultimately caused the populace to completely abandon both when the vast rivers of blood spilled by those nations in the war meant that the monarchs didn't seem to care that much.

In the Second World War neither nation's leadership pretended to care about the average soldiers or man and they were both purveyors of propaganda that glorified individual soldierly death for the nation.  That reflected tactically as both armies deployed tactics that were guaranteed to cause massive loss of life and in the case of both nations some of that loss of life was intentional.  

Put in context, therefore, when people try to make too much of the massive loss of life on the Eastern Front, to an extent, albeit only to an extent, it has to be understood that it was a partial product of armies that intentionally chose to expend lives promiscuously.  Put another way, the U.S. Army wouldn't have fought the Battle of Stalingrad the same way the Red Army did.  A person can take away from that the lessons that they will, but the American and British Empire forces proved amazingly effective against the German Army with a much lower loss of life per mile than the Red Army did.

Related threads:

Pinks and Greens

That nagging sense that something's wrong. Lex Anteinternet: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers (Mid Week At Work)

French yellow vest protesters stopping traffic in November.  MKTH Photo.

I've linked this in something like three times now, which is pretty unusual.

Lex Anteinternet: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers (Mid Week At...: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers Really fascinating economic discussion starting at 20:00. I've been posting some topics on Dis...

It's a really remarkable discussion as a whole, in no small part due to the comments by Father Hugh Barbour, the Catholic Answers Chaplain and a Norbertine Priest.

A lot of people have the sense in this time that something just isn't quite right in various ways.  It's a nagging sense, hard to pin down, but it's produced some remarkable movements and results, not all of which are laudatory in every fashion.  I'd put this general vague sense of something being wrong, and something felt to being wrong, and something actually being wrong, to a bunch of things we've seen around the globe, quite frankly, in recent years, whether you like them or not.  The election of Donald Trump in the United States, the success of the Brexit referendum in the UK recently, the Yellow Vest protests that started off in France and then spread to other European locations.  All of it in a way touches upon something being amiss, and the reason I keep coming back to this podcast as it remarkably touches upon and defines a bunch of it.

In this podcast there's a point at which, probably starting around 20:00, the panelist start discussing the economy and hit upon some remarkably Distributist point, which is probably not surprising in some ways as Distributism has its origins in Catholic social teaching.  Chances are the points raised would enrage people from the left and the right, which Distributism itself does, if not simply confusing them.  But the discussion goes beyond that and touches on some other sensitive areas that people hate to discuss in our modern era.

In this era, there's a popular notion afloat on the far left that what we really need to do is to pay for university education for everyone.  This argument acknowledges the fact that starting at some point in our post World War Two history education when from being an economic advantage to an economic necessity.  The problem with that argument however is that it may in fact have started to jump the shark quite some time ago.  Upper level education prior to World War Two was sufficiently rare that to simply have a bachelors degree meant you were guaranteed a white collar job, as we've discussed here before.  This remained the case into the early 1970s, as we've also discussed before.

It was no longer true, however, by the late 1970s.  College wasn't a disadvantage by any means, and it still definitely isn't, but simply having an English Degree or some Liberal Arts degree no longer meant that you would walk in the door of Amalgamated Amalgamated and get an entry live executive job.  The news seems to have never caught up with people, but as education became more and more common, and as degrees became more and more diverse and with some of them becoming more and more meaningless, their value became less and less. Indeed, there was a period in the 2000s and the 2010s when Juris Doctorates were becoming meaningless, and that was always the lower middle class fall back occupation, it's glorified status now withstanding.  Since that time, the JD has somewhat recovered but in part because people dropped out of the market and some law schools closed.

Anyhow, while we may have very well reached a point where skilled trades are once again really good jobs, there's something still out there that doesn't quite feel right.  Maybe we're just not where we are going yet.

Be that as it may, it's mentioned in this show, and its' correct, that there was in fact a time once, and not even all that long ago, when a person could graduate from high school and enter a trade job of some sort right off the bat, expect to make a good middle class living, and expect to be able to support a family.  Even when I graduated from high school in 1981 that was the case, although it was rapidly ceasing to be the case.

Now, it's largely eh case that families must be supported by two income earners unless the family is willing to economize greatly or a member of the family has a job in the upper middle class at least.  Gone is the era when a person could, usually, leave high school and support a family on the job that he entered thereafter.

This gets into a certain social view about "what is life about".

Engraving on the Byron White Courthouse in Denver Colorado.  On the other side of the courthouse the somewhat contrary quote "Alternate rest and labor long endure".

Above is a saying found on the Byron White Courthouse, the Federal Courthouse, in Denver.  It's an impressive structure meant to send some sort of imposing message, and this phrase certainly does.  It seems to really sum up the American Work Ethic as its come to exist.  Get a good education, leave your home, leave your family (maybe leave your spouse if you need to for your career), get a good career, and work work work.

It contrasts remarkably with this:

The Big Speech: Liesure, by W. H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

It also contrasts remarkably with a quote on other side of the courthouse which states "Alternate rest and labour long endure".  Americans aren't much about rest.

They aren't much about simply living either, it seems.

There are entire old countries where the pace of life at first charms Americans and then enrages them.  Italians don't seem to be in a particularly big hurry. The French and Spanish really aren't either.  What's up with that.

Well, maybe what's up with the opposite is a good question.

The widespread careerism in American culture really begs some questions.  The big begged question is "why"?

Poverty is undoubtedly a hideous thing to endure, but let's be frank that  no how much a person acquires in the way of material this or that they're doing to die.  Jim Morrison the songwriter and poet of the 1960s was right when he stated; "Nobody gets out of here alive".

That's no cause for despair, but it is a cause to question why the concerns of the writers of I'll Take My Stand were so disregarded and came true.  There's a lot to criticize in their Agrarian manifesto, but their point that a life didn't have to be based on material acquisition but could be centered on something else, just as Wendell Berry made in What Are People For?, are correct.

And that gets us back to the podcast. It notes that at one time a fair number of people wanted to graduate from high school, get a local job, get married, and have a family life in the town in which they grew up in.

That's undoubtedly completely true.

Indeed, I recall hearing an interview of a World War One veteran who had lived a life just like that.  He graduated from high school prior to World War One (only a minority of men did that at the time), went to work for a local insurance broker, and then ultimately, after his service in the Great War ultimately married and ended up owning the brokerage.

Stuff like that was quite common.  My grandfather on my father's side left home, with his parents consent, when he was 13 years old, worked in San Francisco, and then went to Denver where he started working for the Swift meat packing plant that was there.  He later moved with that firm to Scotsbluff and, from his labors, was able to buy the plant that was in Casper Wyoming.  A lack of a high school degree apparently didn't hinder him in becoming a businessman.

As an aspect of this, one of the things they also note in the podcast is entering the pursuit of farming, by which they mean being an individual or family farmer, rather than a corporate farmer.  That was also common at one time but it's very hard to do for a lot of reasons now.

Wyoming Stockman Farmer from February 1919. Would there have been a place for that girl to have farmed in 2019?

My point isn't that we need to return to a prior golden age, because there isn't one.  Rather, my point is that something happened to society, and its reflected in the economy, that's made living for simple and human goals and pursuits much more difficult and people sense, lament, and regret that.

It's hard to say exactly what it is or even when it occurred, although I have my theories.  And it would be folly to suggest it had one singular cause. It undoubtedly does not.  But somewhere, and I'd argue seemingly after World War Two, the national culture changed from where getting a (good) job to support your family changed to getting a good job because careers are life.

Indeed, this is the current ethos of the American culture and it's also the subject of much discontent amongst Boomer regarding Millenials, Gen X and Gen Z.  

I've written about it before, but Boomers, who in the 1960s seemed to be symbolized by ideals expressed in The Graduate or Easy Rider, came into their own in the 1970s as one of the most careerist generations taht ever lived.  Indeed, probably the most careerist.  The U.S. has always had careerism as a feature of its modern culture, but not before the 1970s was it really assumed that the career was the defining aspect of a person's being.  The change was fairly remarkable.

Indeed, it's reflected back to us in popular culture.  If we look at the movies of the immediate Post World War Two generation we see goals and aspirations that are quite a bit different from what they'd later be.  In The Best Years Of Our Lives we see a bank executive returning to his upper middle class life (somewhat out of place in its depiction, frankly, as being in a small city), but everyone else simply goes to work and hopes to find a job to support their civilian life.  That entire approach to life is glorified in Its A Wonderful Life.  In Marty we see it reflected with admiration again.

By the 70s and indeed the 80s something else was going on.  Having graduated  high school in 1981, I can recall there really being no other option for most of us, economically, but to go to university or at least college.  No work, outside of oilfield work, was readily available that paid well enough to get by with rare exceptions.  So going on was simply assumed, and indeed largely necessary.  When we were queried by a high school history teacher about our post high school plans I can recall every single student in the class, save for one, indicating he or she was going on to college or university.

The exception in that case was a Mexican immigrant and one of the best students in the class (we had two high ranking Mexican immigrant students, the other one was the valedictorian and became a physician).  He was going to work, as his family had a labor type business of some sort.  The teacher was shocked, but that was his goal and that is no doubt what he did.  Indeed, he'd be one of two of our Hispanic colleagues who did that, the other being a student who went right to work in his family's radiator shop (and who died very young due to something that was likely due to long time chemical exposure).

I'm not condemning anyone's choice.  I'm merely noting it as if a similar poll had been made of similar students 30, 40, or 50 years earlier, a minority of them would have indicated they were going on to university and those who did would have been either very high ranking in their classes, and thereby having had that expectation placed upon them (my father and his siblings fit that category in those time frames) or well connected and living in families that had upper middle class occupations requiring university education.

The point isn't that this evolution occurred, although it clearly did, but that the societal focus changed.  At least as late as the 1950s most of life was viewed as life for most people and that was their focus.  Starting in the 1960s that started to change and its completely changed now.  I hear and read about "careers" all the time.  A huge societal focus is to make sure that women have all the same "career" opportunities as men, for example, which means that they not only have the career opportunities but the career expectations that men have as well. For the most part, if a young man indicated that he wanted a local trade job while in high school people would be shocked, although quite a few take that route after they've at least been exposed to college first.  A young woman indicating that her plan was to get married and have a home life would be regarded as delusional, and for most young women that is in fact an impossibility.

This is not to say that this should be the focus of everyone. If people want careers that's just fine.  But there does seem to be a weariness and even anger with the concept that everyone must be a high achiever and reach "their full potential", with that "full potential" a career goal assigned them on a societal level.  There's something to ponder in that.

Is the National Football League 100 years old?

That comes up due to an advertisement the NFL ran during the Superb Owl. . . um Super Bowl.



The NFL apparently claims this year, 2019, is its centenary.  But I'm not sure why.  It was actually founded in 1920.  So it's almost 100, but not quite.

I'm actually really surprised, fwiw.  I know that football was a big college game a century ago, but I wouldn't have guess that there were professional football teams of any kind at that point.  I'm knew they were around by the 1940s, and therefore presumably by the 1930s, but not the 1910s.

Good advertisement however.

Pinks and Greens

Having a taste for history, and a dislike the of the last two Army dress uniforms, you'd think that I'd like the Army having gone to the new "pink & green" uniform.  Indeed, I thought I'd feel that way as well.

The new Army Green Uniform based on the old  officer's Army Service Uniform that came in, in stages, during the 1920s and 1930s and lasted until the mid 1950s, and the current Army Class A blue uniform in the center.

But I don't.

Maybe I'll change my mind, but to my own surprise, I don't like it.  It strikes me as sort of staged and made up, or maybe even a little pathetic to some degree.

Okay, what am I even talking about? That requires some background explanation, and for that I have to go about it in sort of a round about way or a direct line in a historical way.  I'll do the latter.

I don't intend to do a "history of Army dress uniforms" here (really, I don't, even if I end up doing just that), so I'm just going to leap in just prior to World War One and go from there, more or less. We've been looking at a lot of photographs of the Great War and therefore, for anyone following this blog, there's a ready frame of reference.

U.S. Army officers on their way home from France after the war.  Note the stitching on their great coats.  All wear the then new overseas cap.

Up until after World War Two the Army had a "service uniform" and a series of dress uniforms. The two were not the same.  Dating back to the Revolution, the Army's more or less official color was blue, which impacted both types of uniforms early on and dress uniforms to this day.  I'm not exactly certain why blue came to be the American Army's color, and I'll have to look it up, but I think it may have actually gone as far back as the French and Indian Wars for colonial militia.  It became the official color for the Continental Army in 1779.  That distinguished Americans from the British who wore red, and I do know how that came about but it was no doubt a very useful fact for both armies during the Revolution, as identification of troops by color of uniform was an absolute necessity in the dense gun powder smoke of the day. Red was the color of Cromwell's New Model Army that prevailed in the English Civil War and replaced the army of the crown.

Wounded Army offices, 1918.  A couple of these men are blind.

Blue, indeed a very dark blue, was used for all uniforms pretty much (there are exception) in the U.S. Army up until the 1890s when smokeless powder made it clear (Plains warfare was already actually making it clear) that the era had come when uniforms should help hide a soldier rather than make him more visible, so the Army went to natural colors for field uniforms.  I've dealt with that earlier in the blog, and I'm not going to go into it in depth here, but going into World War One that meant that the Service Uniform was a earthy green color during the cooler months that's generally referred to currently as "Olive Drab" and a tan that Americans call khaki in the hot months.*  Olive drab, abbreviated to "OD", is confusing, as there's a zillion different shades of it and some are much different from others.  But for convenience sake, we'll refer to it as OD here.  For solders serving in a very, very hot tropical environment there was a white uniform of cotton with white coat and white breeches.**

74th Infantry, 1918.

Going into the Great War, the Army Service Uniform, i.e., the field uniform, consisted of OD breeches, an OD wool shirt, OD wool breeches, an OD wool service coat, an OD campaign hat, OD leggings and russet service shoes (boots) for enlisted men in most regions.  For those serving in hot locations during the summer all the same would be true except the color was now an odd OD and the fabric cotton.***  Most soldiers serving in the U.S. Army during World War One only received the wool uniform, and indeed even during the Punitive Expedition soldiers wore the wool uniform into Mexico.  This change in patterns had come about in 1912, and it reflected the rapid evolution of uniforms at the time.  The pattern changed again in 1917, although it really takes an experts eye to be able to tell one pattern in this era from the next.  Indeed, the overall patterns were so close to the British ones that British uniforms were in fact issued to American soldiers on some occasions.

Wyoming National Guardsmen mustered in 1916 wearing the uniform that, for the most part, would serve all the way into the 1920s.  While it can be somewhat difficult to tell due to the size of the photo, this photograph does a good job of illustrating that the enlisted men's uniform and the officers were essentially the same. Two officers can be seen on the left margin of the photo as viewed, one of whom has omitted his service coat.  Both are wearing riding boots rather than leggings, which is the only easy way to distinguish between them.

For officers the uniform was very similar except that officers did not normally (hardly ever) wear leggings and instead wore riding boots and spurs.  Both enlisted men and officers were issued OD ties, although you usually only see them if the men are not wearing their Service Coast as the weather was warm.

This is one of many photos of American servicemen I've run in recent months wit this one giving a good example of the variety in uniforms.  The officer on the left, as viewed, is not wearing an official pattern uniform at all, but the other two officers are. The cut of the pockets is notably different from that of the enlisted men's uniform.  All wear the wartime Same Browne belt that came in during the Great War from the British. The officer on the left is wearing non pattern boots, which was highly common. The other two officers are wearing "field boots", a type or riding boot that is still worn by equestrians today.

A very dark blue Dress Uniform also existed for enlisted men and officers, but during World War One it wasn't issued to most troops.  It was actually somewhat similar to the service uniform, actually in cut and appearance except that it was very dark blue and featured larger and more elaborate rank insignia and flourishes, recalling the 19th Century blue uniform fairly strongly.  Indeed, the prior dress uniform of that type, which was very close in pattern, had actually been issued to some mustering state units in the Spanish American War who, at least at first, were apparently not aware that it was as dress, not a service, uniform.****

World War One recruiting poster showing a cavalryman, mounted, and an infantryman, dismounted.  Both men are shown in their Dress Blue uniform, which would not have been worn in the field, and the scene oddly depicts frontier service more than it does contemporary World War One service.  This does provide, however, good examples of dress uniforms of the period.

For the most part, the service uniform was worn for everything, and indeed, it was well suited for that.

There was some variety in this uniform.  For one thing there was as Service Cap which was a wheelhouse cap. That wasn't really for field use but for garrison use and similar duty.  Mounted men's breeches were foxed and differed from dismounted service men.  The cut of the officer's service coat was different the enlisted men's and of much finer material.  There was as summer or hot weather version of this uniform, although you don't tend to see it in use much even in the summer, which was made of cotton rather than wool, although the headgear was the same. There was a tremendous amount of leeway in footgear for officers who frequently didn't wear the standard field boot but some other variety of riding boot, and the leggings for mounted enlisted men were faced on the inside unlike those for dismounted men.

Okay, that's likely confusing but its' only background and will have to do.

At the same time that this was the Service Uniform, the Army had a Dress Blue uniform, as noted.  For some reason this seems to be poorly understood but its' well established. That uniform retained the traditional blue color of the United States Army in the coat, which was a very dark blue. Trousers were light blue and for NCO's featured a stripe that indicated the soldiers branch (i.e., cavalry, infantry, artillery, etc.).  Some coloration of insignia likewise indicated branch, while other coloration did not.  The hat was the wheelhouse cap.

U.S. Army uniforms changed very little during the Great War but they did change a little.  Sam Browne Belts were introduced for officers, taken from the example of European armies.  The Overseas (flat) cap was introduced to replace the campaign hat in Europe due to the introduction of the M1917 helmet to combat use.  The flat French pattern had was in fact the French pattern at first, but by the end of the war a more stylized, better looking, and less functional version had been introduced.

Two officers of the "Lost Battalion" wearing late war U.S. Army service uniforms featuring the second patter of Overseas cap.  The officer on the left wears a Same Browne Belt.  Maj. Whittlesey, on the right, should be wearing one but isn't.  His service coat is an overseas contract version manufactured by the British, which is evident as the collar folds down rather than stands up.

We've run this photograph before, as frequent viewers will recognize, but it contains a wealth of information on late war U.S. Army uniforms.  The General officer on the left wears the Service uniform for an officer of the U.S. Army, but with private purchase riding breaches and private purchase field boots.  His spurs straps also depart from the issue pattern. The Overseas cap is an early pattern. The Marine Corps officer on the right wears the Marine pattern of Service uniform which was a much darker olive shade and which featured, by this point, the new pattern Overseas cap.  His boots are actually Service Shoes with leather leggings, which would also have departed from issue.

 

Leydecker illustration of the late war enlisted uniform which is, as always, technically correct for this period. By late war the Army had gone to the British pattern puttees rather than leggings for European use and this soldier is wearing the war time "Pershing boots" which were roughout and hobnailed. The color is incorrect, which I've been blaming on Leyendecker, but it turns out that had something to do with the dies being used by the Saturday Evening Post.

After the Great War the Army retained some of the wartime innovations in the uniform and dropped others, with the elimination of puttees being particularly notable.  But by the early 1920s the Army was discontent with the world War One uniform and began to change them.

And that's where this story gets really complicated.

One of the things that happened after World War One is that the uniform entered an oddly impractical stage.  It's almost like the Army didn't expect to fight any more wars after the Great War.

Hmm. . . .

Enlisted men jumping a horse in 1920.  The Chevrons of the riding sergeant are visible in the photograph.

The first change, and it was a sign of things to come, came in 1921 when the Army, which had issued "subdued" rank insignia went to full color insignia.  This was an odd development as it was contrary to the trend of camouflage in the service uniform.  Then, in 1924 the Army introduced full color brass buttons to the uniform, which was very much counter to this trend.

Then, in 1926, the Army introduced a completely different service uniform featuring a more "modern" open collared coat, like that worn with sports coats or Edwardian suits appeared in the service coat, even thought that was supposed to be a combat uniform  Officers and enlisted uniforms were made highly distinct from each other for the first time since the Civil War.  Enlisted soldiers were now issued an OD service uniform with an open collar and, if it was winter, they wore a wool shirt with a black tie.  If it was summer, they wore a khaki shirt with a black tie. If they were operating without the service coat, and it was winter, they wore OD wool pants (after 1938, when breeches were phased out) and OD wool shirt with black tie.  If it was summer or they were serving in the warm regions, they wore khaki "chinos" (that's where they come from), a khaki shirt and a black tie.

The Army Service Uniform in 1939, for enlisted men.  Olive Service Coat, Olive shirt, Olive wool trousers, black tie, leggings, Service Shoes, and field gear.  Note the brass buttons.  Highly impractical, quite frankly.

Note the tie was always supposed to be black.  Soldiers who bought their own often didn't buy black, but OD or khaki, which look better.

Corporal serving in a tropical area prior to World War Two.  He's wearing the cotton khaki shirt with black tie, the khaki wool Service coat with chevrons that would be OD and black (khaki private purchase ones were common), and the Service Cap of the wheelhouse type.  He's also wearing the heavy leather garrison belt.  This was as type of semi dress uniform that was actually fairly rare after the start of World War Two..

Officers, on the other hand, were issued a blizzard of uniforms.

Or, rather more correctly, they had to buy a blizzard of uniforms.  Officers are allowed a clothing allowance for the purchase of uniforms, but it doesn't go very far if there are a lot of them or if they change often.

Anyhow, that's where the "Pink & Green" uniform came in.

Under the new regulations that came in during the 1920s, the officer service coat was a dark green coat with an open collar.  The trousers were khaki.  In warm weather or warm regions, officers wore khakis like enlisted men, but unlike the enlisted men, they also were required to have a wool khaki uniform that had a wool khaki shirt, wool khaki trousers and a wool khaki service coat.  That latter service coat was of a completely different pattern from the service coat for general use, oddly enough.  Indeed, it's the pattern that was later adopted for general issue to all ranks. . .a trend that seems to repeat it self.

U.S. Army officers of World War Two wearing Pinks & Greens.  The officer on the left is an Air Corps officer and is wearing his cap with the stiffner removed.

Making it a bit more confusing, the shirts that went with the new officers uniform varied from khaki, to dark green, to a sort of chocolate green. It's really difficult to tell when one was supported to be worn over another, and I suspect that it often varied by individual officer a fair amount.

This was all well in good in peace time, but during war time, it didn't work at all as the uniform was obviously unsuited for combat.  Given that, in the year leading up to World War Two for the United States, the Army adopted an entire series of uniform additions or even new uniforms that ended up being the ones used in World War Two.  When that occurred, the Service Uniform was relegated to being a dress uniform.

But not the full dress uniform, or the Dress Blue uniform. That uniform was always around, but it wasn't issued to enlisted men during the 1930s, or World War Two, as it was too expensive to do so.  In 1938 it was redesigned to have an open collar and a white dress shirt.  If that sounds familiar, that's because that's the dress uniform that has been in use in recent years.

U.S. Army general officers in Europe exhibiting the spectacular variance in semi dress uniforms at the end of the war.  All of the officers depicted here wear the Eisenhower type jacket that Dwight Eisenhower caused to be introduced into service based upon his like of the British Pattern 39 combat jacket.*****  From left to right in the back row, we see:  (Stearley) Dark Green "Eisenhower Jacket" with garrison cap and khaki shirt and tie, (Vendenburg)  Olive Drab Eisenhower jacket and wheelhouse cap with stiffner removed (common for Air Corps officers), (Smith) Eisenhower jacket worn by officer who had not afixed any decorations; (Weyland) Eisenhower jacket worn with green tie, (Nugent) Eisenhower jacket with wheelhouse cap with stiffener removed.  Front row:  (Simpon) Eisenhower jacket, (Patton) private purchase Eisnehower jacket cut from service jacket featuring brass service buttons with General Officer's service belt, uniform breeches and private purchase riding boots based on the Army pattern; (Spaatz) completely non regulation khaki colored Einenhower style jakcet with khaki wool trousers, (Eisenhower) dark green Eisehnower jacket with dress khaki wool trousers and private purchase shoes, (Bradley) Olive Drab Eisenhower jacket with OD wool trouers, (Hodges) Olive drab Eisenhower jacket and trousers with U.S. Army service shoes, (Gerow) Eisenhower jacket in olive drab shade with olive drab trousers and paratrooper boots.

After World War Two for some weird reason the Army decided that it had to adopt a new service, or in other words dress, uniform. This seems to have been based on the fact that after fighting a huge global war followed by a large war of peace (the Korean War) there were so many dress uniforms around that the Army felt that their status was diminished.  That logic is fine, in so far as it goes, but it didn't seem to contemplate the Cold War, which would continue to bring millions of men into the service.

Walter Bedell Smith and Dwight Eisenhower, center, with Allied officers at the end of World War Two.  Smith is wearing the Pink and Green service uniform, Eisenhower is wearing the jacket named after him in the Olive Drab shade and a dark green tie.

Be that as it may, that's what motivated the Army to adopt The Green Pickle Suit in 1957.

Eh?

Yes, that was the derisive name given by soldiers to the Army Service Uniform, now called the Army Green Uniform. that was adopted after the Korean War.  The uniform, at first, featured a dark green service coat of the exact same pattern as the former officers wool khaki service coat mentioned above, and trousers of the same shade.  Officers trousers featured a black stripe down the side, although officers didn't always buy trousers with that really ugly addition.  Indeed, frequently they did not.  Black shoes and a dark green wheelhouse cap and dark green flat cap finished the uniform. By dark green, we mean a sort of forest green.  The shirt was khaki.  The tie was dark green.  There was no difference between officers and enlisted uniforms except as noted which was the first time that this had been the case since the 1920 with there being some actual distinctions between enlisted men and officers prior to then.  The Army also adopted an optional khaki colored uniform for hot climates, phasing it out  however in 1969.

As originally issued or purchased (by officers) the uniform featured dark green heavy wool coat and trousers which may explain why a tropical version in lighter wool was issued at the same time. As noted, the shirt was khaki and at the same time the Army had a semi dress uniform that was an evolution of the undress khaki uniform that had come in during the 1930s.  This evolved however and starting in 1964 the green uniform started to feature an "all season" wool, which was the beginning of the end of its acceptable appearance.  In 1979 the Army adopted a "mint" green shirt to go with the uniform that was hideous and hated by everyone who wore it and it started to phase out the semi dress khaki uniform.  In 1990 it completed the uglification of the uniform by switching the already too light fabric to a poly/wool blend, just at the time that petroleum based clothing was solidly on its way out for good.

During the same period the Army reduced, then re-expanded, the headgear that went with the uniform. Every since the 1920s the Army had been issuing peaked or wheelhouse caps as well as garrison (overeseas) caps to be worn with the dress uniform or even with the service uniform.  It continued to do this all the way through the Vietnam War, amazingly, as that made for a lot of headgear for troops who also had separate fatigue and combat uniforms. After the Vietnam War it stopped doing this and for a time just issued garrison caps, although it retained the wheelhouse cap as a private purchase item, but then in the late 1980s it adopted the black beret, which was a controversial move at the time.

The Green Pickle Suit was never fondly thought of by soldiers, who perhaps thought it, accurately, having a sad appearance in comparison with the Service Uniform that preceded it.  Nonetheless, it lasted a really long time.  Unfortunately, the quality of materials in it drastically declined during its service, going from a nice wool to a crappy wool poly blend.  That last version looked bad due to the materials more than anything else, but at some point the Army decided to abandon it in favor of a blue dress uniform.

Dress Blues had come back into service for enlisted men in 1954, having ceased to be issued in the 1920s and as a practical matter not really having been issued since prior to World War One.  Up until the abandonment of the Army Green Uniform for the blue uniform, it was an optional item for enlisted men.  The basic pattern of the blue uniform had been adopted in 1938, and there was a rarely seen white uniform that existed at the same time and in fact which survived at least into the 1990s.

The problem there is that the blue uniform, when modified and adopted for general use, was made of the same ultra crappy looking materials.  So it looked pretty darn bad as well.  I'll not go into it, but a blue dress uniform of wool/ploy craptacular looks craptacular.

We'll note, fwiw, that this entire time the Marines stuck with a uniform, a good looking one, that they'd adopted in the 1920s as well but which was less modified in form from their World War One era one.  Everyone always remarks how good looking that uniform is.

Hmmm. . . .

Well, anyhow, after years and years being afflicted with lousy looking dress uniforms, the Army has decided to introduce the Army Greens Uniform, which is the old Pink & Green uniform, sort of.

Here's an Army summation of it:

Army Greens Uniform

Provided by PEO Soldier Tuesday, December 11, 2018 

What is it?
The U.S. Army is adopting the Army Greens as its new service uniform, based on the iconic "pink and green" uniform worn during the World War II. This will be the everyday service uniform starting in 2020, and it will reflect the professionalism of the Soldier.
The Army Greens Uniform will include khaki pants and brown leather oxfords for both men and women, with women having the option to wear a pencil skirt and pumps instead. There will be a leather bomber jacket as an outerwear option.**
The Army Blues Uniform will return to its role as a formal dress uniform, and the Army Combat Uniform also known as the Operational Camouflage Pattern, or OCP will remain the duty/field uniform.
What are the current and past efforts of the Army?
In March 2017, Program Executive Office Soldier (PEO Soldier), under direction from the Chief of Staff of the Army, prepared a "Greens" Uniform demonstration and options to support the decision-making process. Extensive polling data showed overwhelming support for this uniform.
On Veterans Day, 2018, the Army announced the new uniform, which will be made in the U.S., and have no additional cost to the American taxpayer. This uniform will be constructed of high-quality fabrics and tailored for each Soldier. This will be cost-neutral and covered under enlisted Soldiers' annual clothing allowance. The new uniform and associated materials will comply with all Berry Amendment statutory requirements for Clothing and Textiles.
What continued efforts does the Army have planned?
The Army will conduct a Limited User Evaluation (LUE), using Soldiers that interact with the public. These Soldiers will wear the new uniform for a few months and then provide feedback for possible last-minute changes to the final design. The mandatory wear date for all Soldiers will be 2028.
Why is this important to the Army?
The reintroduction of this uniform is an effort to create a deeper understanding of, and connection to, the Army in communities where awareness of the Total Army needs to increase.
The Army believes this high-quality uniform will instill pride, bolster recruiting and enhance readiness.
Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage are core Army Values, and the new uniform is at the center of demonstrating Soldiers' values, professionalism and accountability to each other and the American people.
The Army Greens will be worn by America's next Greatest Generation as they develop into the smart, thoughtful and innovative leaders of character outlined in the Army Vision.

Now, the old uniform, and by extension this one, is much, much better looking than the old Green Pickle Suit.

But something just seems wrong.  What is it?

Well, for one thing, the Army isn't adopting the 1926 to 1957 dress uniform. . . it's adopting the dress uniform of that period that was issued to officers only.

I don't mean to sound chauvinistic at all.  I was an enlisted man, not an officer, but adopting the officers uniform of that period somehow smacks of grade inflation, if you will. The Army has already been suffering from something like this anyhow since World War Two or at least World War One, and this really seems an expression of that.

Going into World War One the Army issued but single medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor.  During the war, in recognition of what a big event it was, the Army introduced wound stripes, overseas bars and in 1918 the Silver Star.  During World War Two additional awards were added, including the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Expert Infantryman's Badge, etc.  I'm not saying that any of this was bad by any means but it reflects a definite trend.

Coming out of World War Two a lot of soldiers now had a variety of awards in addition to those that had been authorized earlier reflecting campaigns and other decorations. This has continued on to the point now where a career soldier has a shocking number of awards compared to his World War Two colleagues.  The black beret itself is also an example of this as originally the only American soldiers who wore the berets of any color were the post war Special Forces, who were even nicknamed for their beret.  Black berets came in unofficially for Rangers in Vietnam during that war and then were taken up by tankers, mimicking the British (who had earlier mimicked the Germans) in the 1970s. That was put to an end but the mass issuance of black berets offended both and particularly offended the Rangers who soon acquired a tan beret, somewhat recalling the general issue color that had been adopted by the British during World War Two.  Now the Airborne also has its own color, maroon, also recalling the World War Two British issuance.

The point is that if the Army really wanted to recall the heroic service of American troops in World War Two, it ought to just go back to the pattern of dress that existed in 1939.  It was a good uniform and it looks right.  Most sergeants don't want to look like they're pretending to be an officer in the first place.

And frankly another thing that doesn't look quite right is the uniform itself. For  most of the officers who wore it, in its incredible assortment of varieties, it featured a stiff wheelhouse cap and an officers overseas cap. The Army here is adopting the wheelhouse cap with the stiffner removed, which looks sharp but which was an Army Air Force thing that went on to be continued by at least the first USAF dress uniforms.  After the separation of the Air Force from the Army in the 1940s the Army made fun of the early dress uniform of the Air Force by calling it a "bus driver's uniform, but now the Air Force will have legitimate reasons to be miffed at the Army, particularly as the Army is also going to readopt the A2 flight jacket.******

Beyond that, one thing that the adoption of the uniform really glaringly points out is that World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and even our current wars, were men's wars, war being and remaining a traditional role of men.  There's something almost shocking about seeing the pink & green uniform altered to contemplate pregnancy in a way that the same for the Army Green Uniform or the blue uniform was not surprising to the eye.  Or maybe its because there was a period female pink & green uniform that's obviously not been adopted, and I don't blame them for that, which causes a bit of mind bending in the historic throwback category.  The updating by the British of their service uniform, which they've retained as a dress uniform for the entire period since World War Two, for women looks absolutely correct, because of its long usage, the same just isn't true of the female variant of the pink & green uniform which hasn't been.

And maybe you can't recapture past glory.  You can recall it, but World War Two and the Korean War are over.  Readopting the uniform of that period, after so many years have gone by, seems odd.  It's much like watching the British celebrate their victories and triumphs of the Second World War.  It's poignant, but it seems like maybe its so focused on as nothing very good has happened to them since.  

Not that the Army doesn't need a new uniform, although its not replacing the Dress Blue uniform, only augmenting it for daily wear.  It does. But something here just isn't working.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Khaki is a confused term in American usage.  The term was a Hindi one that was picked up by the British with the apparent meaning of "dust". But in British military use it meant a color much like the American Olive Drab.

**The U.S. experimented with uniforms a great deal from 1890 to 1910 or so and there were a lot of changes and varieties of uniforms including some that retained blue for awhile.  White is clearly not a suitable uniform for an Army in the field in the smokeless powder era, but it took the Army awhile to catch on to that.

***I don't know what caused the Army to switch from khaki for hot weather to a light olive uniform for the same, but it did.

Regarding the pants, the Army issued breeches and not trousers, having gone to that some time prior.  Breeches are associated with equestrians today and because the Army was so horse dependant its not surprising that it would choose breeches as its pants.  having said that, not even cavalrymen were issued breeches in the U.S. Army up until the 1890s when the uniform changes started to come in.

Breeches were an extremely common military pant at the time and while they look very awkward now, they served a real purpose.  Most armies, the United States Army included, did not issue high boots to infantrymen.  As the Army always wanted trousers sealed up for protection from vegetation and insects that meant this had to be done with leggings or puttees.  Both of these items are very uncomfortable with trousers but less so with breeches.  It's notable that when the Army abandoned breeches for trousers in 1939, save for mounted men, leggings were phased out within a few years thereafter.

****The actual field uniform at the time of the war with Spain was really in a state of flux and most soldiers deployed to Cuba wearing blue wool shirts, cotton duck stable trousers, and cotton duck stable jackets. The stable uniform by that time was died a color that resembles that of the current Carhartt cotton duck.  Because of the heat, solders fought stripped down and therefore hardly ever wore the jacket.

The Army had just adopted a new service uniform at the time, however, and the soldiers should have been issued khaki breeches, blue shirts, and a khaki service coat.  Most were after they returned to the United States.

*****So I don't go down too many rabbit holes, I'm not going to deal with uniforms that are sort of dead ends in our discussion here. But the Eisenhower jacket came about as Dwight Eisenhower was really impressed with the British Pattern 1939 battle dress, which featured an incredibly high wasted pair of baggy trousers and a short court.  His influence caused the short coat to be adopted as a uniform item in the thought  that it would serve all purposes, just like it did for the British, pretty much.

Polish volunteers in British battle dress during World War Two.

The problem was that the ship had sailed on that type of uniform already as the Army had adopted the M1943 field jacket.  The M1943 field jacket, originally designed for paratroopers, would revolutionize military uniforms in the west and it only recently ceased to be issued, in its modified M-60 pattern, in the U.S. Military (but can still be worn as a private purchase item).  After that, there was no way that the Eisenhower jacket was going anywhere as a field uniform.

Contrary to common belief, it didn't really go anywhere as a general issue item during World War Two, but officers started to acquire them ahead of the logistics system, and it became a common officer semi dress item by the end of the war. Shortly after the war the supply system caught up with the average soldier and it became very widely issued.  This immediate post war issuance caused the Eisenhower jacket to be associated with the World War Two soldiers, as in the immediate peace time conditions it was a more comfortable item than the Service Uniform, but it never saw field use with the U.S. Army.  It was quite popular through the entire period it was issued, however, and was adopted in blue by the USAF.  It started to be phased out in the 1950s but servicemen who had acquired one before that were allowed to wear them for a long time, and they accordingly became a coveted item.

When the Army recently decided to adopt the Pink & Green uniform as a current dress uniform, it considered reintroducing the Eisenhower jacket but decided not to, perhaps because of a bad decision it made that's address in a footnote below.

******By which the Army means the A2 flight jacket, which was originally introduced for airmen and which is a current semi dress item for U.S. Air Force officers. The similar Navy pattern of flight jacket from World War Two remains a semi dress item for flyers in the Navy. This will be hugely unpopular with the Air Force and it should be.

American fighter pilots of the 332 Fighter Group being issued escape kits in Italy, 1945.  These African American pilots are wearing a mix of uniforms, probably reflecting their length in time of service. The pilot on the left is wearing the classic A2 Flight Jacket with a flight suit underneath it.  He's also wearing a wheelhouse cap with the stiffner removed.  A pilot immediately behind him has the plastic rain cover on the same type of cap.  The other two pilots in the photo are wearing later pattern cloth flight jackets that came into service during World War Two.  One wears a garrison cap.  One is carrying a M1911 pistol in a shoulder holster.   The pilot on the left appears to be carrying one as well that he has not yet fastened.  The seated lieutenant isn't an airman and wears a M1943 field jacket with a garrison cap, an allowable practice at the time.  He also has his watch on upside down, a practice common to World War Two era combat troops and sailors.  An airman in the background wears the sheepskin aviator's cap.