Sunday, March 15, 2009

Uniform confusion

Einstein's brother is in the Army.

We're headed up to visit him, and while we are there, he'll be graduating from the training he is at right now. This has led to some confusion as to what uniform to wear. Since we rarely get a chance to talk with Einstein's brother, I asked his folks if the invitation they had received had a note about the uniform. They had no clue. Einstein finally got a chance to talk to his brother this weekend, and was told that the UOD was "greens".

Since there is no green Air Force uniform (except his flight suit, which I'm fairly sure is inappropriate for the ceremony we're attending) I set out on the internet to find out whether "greens" meant Einstein should wear his blue service dress or his mess dress.

The answer (which is what I assumed anyway) is service dress.

But in the process I discovered reason number 472 why I love the Air Force. When Einstein is trying to decipher the appropriate uniform for the occassion, here are his choices: mess dress, service dress, blues, ACU's/flight suit. That's it. The comparison chart I found is INSANE. Class A, B, C, D; green, blue, white, summer, winter, etc etc. How do you keep it straight? Do you have an entire other closet for all of those uniforms? I feel like the four we have to deal with (blues and service dress are basically the same) take over my closets as it is!

**Einstein is demanding that I include the fact that he wishes the AF would hurry up and do the uniform switch over they've been talking about for the past five years, because he thinks the current service dress makes them look like airline pilots. I think the "new" proposed service dress makes them look like they are going to take orders from Emperor Palpatine. If you want to see the proposed change, look here.

Are all of those different uniforms confusing? How often do people mess up and wear the wrong thing?

Since Einstein's brother is in the Army and his two best friends are in the Navy and the Marines...I saved this for future reference.

3 comments:

The Mrs. said...

We have an entire closet and then some devoted to uniforms. Flyboy has to have a full set (three of each) of desert cammies, woodland cammies, different boots for each set, Alphas, Bravos, Charlies, Deltas (with of course the long sleeve and the short sleeve shirts), Blues, desert flightsuits (at least three but really who has just three FS), green flightsuits, and the boots that go with each set. Not to mention all the different covers, shoes, belts, etc. I swear, they make jokes about women and clothes, oh no my friend, make the jokes about military men and clothes. Its INSANE. And the truly frustrating part is that we keep all this stuff and pay A LOT for it (that uniform allowance barely covers a pair of cammies) and he really only wears FS. sigh. It drives me nuts.

Solitary Wind Chime said...

The uniforms are just the tip of the iceberg! Then there's all the gear...the chest rig, LBE, head lamp, extra ammo packs, ear plugs, camel back, suspenders, knife, waterproof paper, compass...it never ends. I went to bins. As long as its in bins, my organization ends. And I have yet to see a difference between winter and summer boots, but I have multiple of each.

loqi said...

I think this is one of those things that I will be learning now that I'm living in the same house as LT. Yikes! :)