Un-Uniform-ity

You may have noticed that I have been clad in numerous outfits over the last 12 months.

The run down:
5 January 2007; issued four sets of DCUs (DoD standard Desert Camouflage Uniform) for deployment -- DCUs are specified as the required uniform for deployment training and deployment

10 February 2007; issued four sets ACUs (Army's Advanced Combat Uniform) -- ACUs are specified as the uniform for the deployment.

11 February 2007; All Airmen on the team put on the ACU for deployment training

12 February 2007; After some harsh words at the senior leadership level, we are ordered back into DCUs for the duration of training.

26 March 2007; Formal deployment -- ordered to wear ACUs

12 April 2007; ordered to wear DCUs while on base and ACUs while out-side-the-wire.

5 May 2007; given latitude to wear ACUs 'more often'

15 September 2007; issued Nomex ACUs (Nomex being the flame resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont...a good thing to wear in a combat environment...)

20 September 2007; ordered not to wear ACUs of any kind (including Nonex ACUs)

21 September 2007; issued field replacement ACUs...two additional sets, which cannot be worn....

5 October 2007; argue successfully to wear Nomex ACUs while outside-the-wire (no likes the idea of catching on fire)

7 October 2007; ordered to remove all Army unit patches from ACUs when wearing the uniform.

10 October 2007; Airmen are explicitly ordered not to wear ACUs at any time.

17 October 2007; argue successfully to wear Nomex ACUs while outside-the-wire

11 November 2007; issued Army winter weight ACUs,...which cannot be worn

5 December 2007; issued four sets ABUs (Air-Force Battle Uniform)...ordered to wear only ABUs (ACU uniforms of any kind are now not authorized)

8 December 2007; discover that tops and bottoms of ABUs do not match (different colors of dye....almost everyone has this problem)

9-13 December 2007; try, albeit unsuccessfully, to trade with other Airmen to land matching sets of ABUs

14 December 2007; find correctly dyed ABU bottoms and trade for them.

15 December 2007; figure out that the newly traded ABU bottoms also do not match...there is yet a third non matching color of dye....

21 December 2007; give up trying to find matching uniforms

20 January 2008; issued a single AF DFS (Air Force Desert Flight Suit....which is made with Nomex). Army Nomex ACUs are no longer authorized at any time. AF DFS is only outside-the-wire uniform ('when a flame resistant uniform is authorized')

Now in the midst of all of this, we have been issued only one set of body armor (way back in January 2007), which comes in an ACU pattern. So when we are not wearing ACUs of one variety or another, we are not camouflaged. In other words, in the midst of exchanging uniforms six times over a thirteen month period, we have quite literally been ordered out of camouflage (or out of 'uniform' depending upon the dictionary meaning you choose).

And of course, by this point, everyone here is too confused (or frustrated) to know what to wear. This afternoon walking back from lunch. I saw every single one of the aforementioned uniforms being worn, plus a few mixes and mis-matches of these. For the most part, it's not such a big deal, except we are all running out of space to stow all of the uniform parts that we cant wear.

Sometimes it is easy to see why good-ol' Willie Nelson decided not to pay taxes all those years.... lol

From the Merrium-Webster Online Dictionary:
'Uniform'
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English uniforme, from Middle French, from Latin uniformis, from uni- + -formis -form
Date:15th century
1 : having always the same form, manner, or degree : not varying or variable
2 : consistent in conduct or opinion
3 : of the same form with others : conforming to one rule or mode : consonant
4 : presenting an unvaried appearance of surface, pattern, or color
5 : relating to or being convergence of a series whose terms are functions in such manner that the absolute value of the difference between the sum of the first n terms of the series and the sum of all terms can be made arbitrarily small for all values of the domain of the functions by choosing the nth term sufficiently far along in the series
Function: transitive verb
Date: circa 1681
1 : to bring into uniformity 2 : to clothe with a uniform
Function: noun
Date: 1748
1 : dress of a distinctive design or fashion worn by members of a particular group and serving as a means of identification; broadly : distinctive or characteristic clothing

Posted by paul at January 20, 2008 04:50 PM