Frozen squid

Does the lack of sanity when it comes to uniforms in the Navy ever come to an end?

In a service that has five (yes 5) different mutually unsupporting (wait, make that 7 as USN can also wear USMC and USA camo as well) cammo/aquaflage - no this report from one of my readers should not be a shocker.

I am currently a USN student at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico. Monday -Thursday all other branches of the service wear their digital cammies. Foreign Officers wear their cammies. What to the USN students wear? That’s right, khakis. Why? Because buried in some sub-paragraph of the NWU instruction it states that they are not authorized for wear in the NCR. We look like idiots down here in the snow in our short sleeve poly wool (or even worse, CNT) khakis while every other swinging Richard wears a warm and functional working uniform.

I’m not a huge fan of the NWU, but I own it and procured it at my own expense, so I might as well be allowed to wear the damn smurf suit.

My response to this initially was to use the corpsman clause in the uniform reg that allows USN with orders to a USMC unit to wear the MARPAT uniform. I procured the Desert MARPAT (again at my own cost, explain to me why officers don’t get a uniform allowance when a new working uniform is rolled-out? I don’t have to buy my flight suits.) and wore it until the time change when the Marines switch to the woodland pattern. Too stubborn to spend another $200+ on a uniform that I will never wear again, I’m freezing my ass of in khakis.

[Editorial note, the following sentence followed a snarky exchange of emails where I suggested he wear SKD...) ]And yes, it would be nice if the Chairman would share his procurement source for Service Dress Khaki or least the dressed-down equivalent for this situation.

Final OBTW – my fellow squids at the Quantico Naval Clinic are wearing NWUs … so WTF?

Why are Gen X leaders so up in arms here and there? Hmmmmm ..... I see a trend....

As a side-note - (yes, I too asked what the Senior Naval Officer there was doing about it) I have from good sources that the SOPA there is a solution and not a problem - but the issue is above the SOPA's ability to fix. Not the SOPA's fault.