U.S. Special Operations: Personal Opinions

[RTK]

Also, the cuffing of sleeves I mentioned only meant one fold, up and in, so the sleeve stopped at the wrist, rather than somewhere on the hand, greatly improving airflow.

One cuff still defeats the function. You need gloves anyways, at least when dealing with crew served weapons on HMMWVs or 72 ton monsters that attract heat like white on rice. If I'm not mistaken, that's an Armywide policy when leaving the wire anyways (gloves and eye protection is part of the uniform). The cuffing allows a little pocket that's just the right size for brass. Even when dismounted, a thrown 5.56 round into the sleeve could result in the striken Soldier to unvoluntarily clench his muscles. If he's behind you in the stack and his weapon is flagging someone, it could have catastrophic results.

From a motorized or mechanized perspective, we hung a Kestrel guage in our tank in May 2003. The gunner's station was 155 F. You'd scald yourself on the metal of the coopla. In 2005 the inside of my HMMWV, with a climate control system, in the middle of the Al Jezera desert in western Iraq was still over 100 F. Imagine if the driver cuffed and a stray .50 round went in his blouse. I can. We damn near rolled a vehicle.

In the end, risk reduction control measures are emplaced for reasons. I'd bounce my ideas off my senior NCOs before I completed my risk assessment with special emphasis in reduction control measures. My last 1SG had 40% of his body burned in Iraq. Needless to say his pet peeve was uniforms, nomex, gloves, eye protection, and NO CUFFING.

Your NCOs will direct you on the right path. Don't try to out-think them. Some of these guys have been doing this a while.

We're from the government and we're here to help.