Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

To start with the positive, scuttling summer whites and winter blues for bluejackets sounds like an excellent idea. Combining a short- or long-sleeved white shirt with the blue trousers already in sailors’ seabags eliminates the trouble of keeping summer white trousers white and Johnny Cash shirts unburned by a temperamental iron. And it reduces the size of the seabag, which is right on target.

One puzzling question arises from the news about service uniforms, though. Why propose putting bluejackets in khaki? Since no pictures were released and only a new “Service Blue” uniform was mentioned in the release, what my mind conjures up is navy blue trousers with a khaki shirt, or in other words a weak knockoff of the Marines’ Dress Blue Charlies and Deltas. The only rationale my poor powers of telepathy can discern is that khaki does not show dirt like white does. Of course, it seems to me that if keeping a uniform clean is a problem on the job, the sailor should be in a working uniform.

That this proposal made it past a board composed of chiefs is also surprising. Whatever happened to the “sacred” tradition of “putting on khaki?” As an outsider looking in — I was never enlisted — I think the symbolism and psychological impact of changing to a different uniform is worthwhile and should not be diluted. After a half-century or so of identifying the leader by “looking for the khaki,” I say let’s not blur the line between the leaders and the led.

The item that drew the most heated debate among those to whom I talked was sew-on devices. The general consensus was that sew-ons are an extra expense for sailors and unnecessary or dangerous in the field. The same goes for different-colored lettering on name and service tapes. Our brothers and sisters in the Marine Corps learned long ago to take off their brightwork in the field and avoid being too obvious about who is in charge and a more valuable target. We should do the same.

The biggest proposal, and the one that probably represents a leap away from tradition, is the proposal to wear-test four variations of what Task Force Uniform calls the “Navy Working Uniform.” These uniforms are made of two different blue-gray camouflage fabrics. My question is this: Into what background are we trying to blend?

When sailors are in the field with Seabees or Marines, whether they be in the woods or the desert, the most obvious target will be the blue-gray blob. And don’t even get me started about the futility of wearing camouflage on ships. If you fall overboard in one of these without the benefit of a float coat or “rubber ducky,” you can forget about anyone finding you.

The crux of the problem in designing an everywhere, all-the-time working uniform for the Navy is that we work in every environment, day and night. Sadly, in the wake of all the fanfare surrounding the rollout of the other services’ new utility uniforms, what the push to go to camouflage looks like on the deckplates is a “me, too,” and a weak one at that.

My suggestion on working uniforms is that we steal the Coast Guard’s Operational Dress Uniform, make it out of a darker blue fabric for E-6 and below and khaki fabric for officers and chiefs, declare victory and walk away. Officers and chiefs can put on a set of the “blues” in situations where they do not want to stand out, like boarding parties. Sailors who work in environments where camouflage is a necessity should get issued cammies as organizational clothing, just like we do now.

Finally, two last pop-up suggestions for Task Force Uniform appear on my scope:

• Ditch the “flasher jacket!” That ever-dingy, baggy, not very water repellent all-weather coat has got to go. Offer the fleet a well-cut, double-breasted, Gore-Tex lined coat with a belt and a zip-in Thinsulate liner and you will make a lot of friends around the waterfront.

• Outfit new working uniforms with a button that a ship’s laundry cannot crush, and I will recommend you for Distinguished Service Medals.