Army, Marine Corps clashing over cammies…
… and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps is dead wrong on this one. Lance Bacon and Dan Lamothe of The Army Times report on another one of those unnecessary distractions from fighting and wining wars. Key excerpts follow:
… Army officials have said they want soldiers to wear the best possible camouflage — even if that is the MARPAT. But Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlton Kent says don’t count on it.
The Corps owns the rights to MARPAT and wants to retain it for its own use, Kent said late last year. Marine officials said they have no beef with anyone researching and testing MARPAT, but they want Marines distinguished from other service members on the battlefield…
During most of my Marine Corps career the Corps and the Army wore the same camouflage uniform and there was no problem in identifying the difference between a Marine and a Soldier – from the cover/headgear, to the Corps’ lack of unit patches and branch identifiers, to the different style rank insignia and other service devices, to the EGA and USMC iron-on stencil, to blousing vs. tucking of trousers at the boot, to the boot itself, to the different way each service rolled sleeves (Army’s method was better in an NBC environment BTW), to the haircuts (Rangers excepted), to the Devil Dogs’ white t-shirt peeking out at the neckline from under camouflage for goodness sake. The SgtMaj should fight the good fights and let the Army select the best possible uniform for their Soldiers and be flattered because the Corps led, by years, in the development and issue of a state of the art uniform. And mostly, isn’t the real issue identifying friendly from foe from non-combatant? Let’s focus on that.
