You might want to talk to some of them instead
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fred III
...To me, it's just another case of lowering the bar, but maybe that's what a volunteer military needs. ... Why should the military set its standards any higher than our civilian "bosses"? Pretty soon, the bar won't have any lower to go... then everyone should be happy.
denigrating something you apparently aren't familiar with.
Having also played in the SEA war games -- though not in Saigon -- and watching and talking to many serving today, I have no doubt that these kids today, officer and enlisted, are across the board, smarter, better educated, better trained and far more tactically and technically competent than the vast majority of folks who served in Viet Nam.
As was true during Viet Nam, they are not responsible for stupid decisions made by their bosses.
The Marines are not immune...
as I remember under Mundy we switched from crew neck Ts to either V neck or no T in our "Charlies" the Army equivilent being the short sleeve shirt with Class A trousers. What a nice expense which lasted exactly four years. This also caused some leadership angst about excessive chest hair. :rolleyes:
I remember the mama sans in Oki would actually add starch to the washers in the last few minutes of the rinse cycle. If you did laundry after them some of your civvies would come out a bit stiffer than they went in. :eek:
For headgear the Corps hasn't changed the utility cover all that much since WWII, other than the fabric.
The funniest thing I saw with the green cotton utilities were boo boos with the USMC/Eagle Globe and Anchor iron-on. When you received a new set you also had to buy the iron-on. The unwary would often fail to note that the iron-on's directions were printed on either side of the emblem but just happened to also be of the same iron-on material. A few young Marines ended up with a new pair of utilities with a nice set of iron-on directions neatly afixed on either side of the port pocket. :D