Quote:
Originally Posted by Stealhead
What AF uniform debacle? Are you referring to when they did that stupid name tape thing back in 93' or so and they changed back to the regualr name tapes?(
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Yeah that. He who's name we should not utter is McPeak. I enlisted in 92, so i can bear witness to the entire debacle, in detail.
I wont get into the airliner uniform.. .err i mean service dress, but i'll illustrate the BDU debacle in a little better detail.
In the beginning, there was standard BDU's with name tapes, and assorted boy scout like badges plastered everywhere. This i shall call uniform Iteration number 1:
Then someone got the bright idea that trimming all that down to just a crew patch, would save on uniform costs. So a velco square was sewn directly above the left breast pocket upon which to place your crew patch. This i shall call uniform iteration number 2: (EDIT: FYI, swapping crew patch's out with a buddy was great fun in tech school)
Then the officers went unto the powers that be and said, "This sucks! We are not getting saluted because nobody can tell our rank! At approximately the same time, some office jockeys that fly a desk whined that they couldn't put their pens into the pen pocket without it crimping on the crew patch. Enter Uniform iteration number 3. Rank is now again, sewn on the sleeves, and the crew patch is placed one half inch above the left breast pocket.
Now picture if you will, a time period where because nothing has offically been phased out yet, or rather the phase out date hasn't happened yet, we now have THREE different versions of the *COUGH* ... "uniform".
Old style BDU's with tapes
Crew patch by itself
Crew patch 1/2 inch above pocket with rank.
By this time, the "uniform savings" originally envisioned had became ahhh... moot?
Some time later, after McPeak left his position, the next AF chief of staff came in, said, "enough of this happy horses**t" and we all went back to the orignal BDU's with name tapes. The airliner service uniform stayed, and we were all left wondering, "WTF was that all about anyway?!"
edit:
ALl that said, some good did come out of the uniform changes. The changes to senior NCO chevron's i thought was the best idea of the whole time period. (IE instead of a chief master sgt having 2 rooftops and 6 rockers, he now has 3 rooftops and 5 rockers.)