ADDITIONAL TEXT: About Uniforms (FAQ section 5.10.4) Here are some postings about uniforms from the JAG Mailinglist: ================================================================== Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 17:08:43 -0400 From: Armando Heredia Most military services conform to a working Uniform of the Day. This is dependent upon several factors, some actually pragmatic. Usually, a schedule is posted for the UotD, but other factors apply: 1.What is the weather or the season? Dress blues do apply in formal arrangements as well as working uniforms during the winter/spring, primarily because they're made of wool. Trenchcoats are also servicable during this time and the rainy season. Summertime brings out the undress whites (short-sleeved white pants tunics), as well as the khakis. There are formal dress whites (long sleeve with Chinese collars for the gents). I can't recall if there are formal khakis - you used to see them in WWII documentaries, I don't think they apply anymore. 2. Are you in a war zone? Normally, formal uniforms are rarely seen in forward operating areas near a battlezone. It's impractical (easier to clean the muck and grime off fatigues and denim blues) and often a security hazard, as snipers and other elements hoping to bag leadership figures are looking for rank tabs, stripes and other giveaways. 3.) Slight variations for the squids and jarheads. Marine officers have working khakis and dress greens as opposed to working khakis and dress whites for naval officers. 4.) Your threads may vary. Unit commanders aren't neccessarily in agreement over the uniform of the day. Some aviation units won't let you lounge around in flight suits unless you're headed directly for a flight or just coming off one - otherwise you'd better be in the designated uniform or you're getting written up. Others can be more relaxed and are interested in maintaing a good working environment for a variety of reasons. This isn't a comprehensive list of uniforms or schemes. Hopefully, this gives you an idea why there are a variety of uniforms and where they apply. ================================================================== From: Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 13:26:52 -0400 (EDT) Thought I'd just jump in here and throw in how I get dressed! Khakis: Marty, the formal khaki may make a return-especially now that it is worn "within the beltway". Keep your fingers crossed. Rank insignia on the colar points will probably return. The black "wooly-pully" sweater can be worn with Khaki's at any time of the year. Always worn with soft shoulder boards. The wearing of additional rank devices on the shirt colar points has come and gone nd is currently back. Colar points are worn putside again (these go in and out at someone's whim). The new black jacket is authorized with khakis any time of the year. Cetrified navy twill is not worn on ship board because it melts! So, Washed khaki are worn, no ribbons but breast insignia. Rank shifts from points to colar enge with this uniform. Whites: Summer white is appropriate as a uniform of the day usually from April to September-but region dictates. I use tis for more official duties (i.e. days when I'm not in the office all day). Worn with hard shoulder boards and the black jacket. NO sweater-you are correct Marty. Chockers/Dress Whites are used for ceremonies. Summer Change of Command ceremonies wear chockers with LARGE medals and ribbons. Chockers are service dress for men and can be worn with ribbons (no medals). Service Blues: Worn year round and the most appropriate uniform in the Navy. You can never be chewed on for wearing this uniform. With swords and large medals this is the service dress uniform. With ribbons its dress blues. See this worn by lots of senior officers in the winter. Harm moves into this one for court-most appropriate. Shirt worn under has soft boards. And yes, you can remove the jacket (known as a blouce) and relax the colar within your space. But, leave your space and the blouce goes back on and colar is buttoned. Blouce may be replaced by the wooly pully sweater at all times. Aviation greens must be authorized by your command and currently noone has them. Flight suits, though worn at the pleasure of the aviator, should not be worn away from the flight line. But don't tell them that! Mine comes off before I eat or anything else. Mess dress is yet another pickle and for women includes both a long and short skirt. Plus, depending on your local, the tropcal mess dress has a cumberbund that is velcroed at the back instead of hook and eye closed. We have plenty of choices most days for what to wear. Head gear changes with what you are wearing, as do shoes. Use to be only wings of gold entitled you to wear brown shoes. That changed last year and now everyone can wear brown with Khaki. Enlisted still wear black shoes with whites-officers wear white shoes. ================================================================== From: Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 21:44:55 -0400 (EDT) Uniform of the day is established by the area commander. Blues are always appropriate, whites in the summer and khaki year round. Most officers have a fairly "set" cycle to how they wear their uniforms. My guess is when you see the episodes with Krenneck the story is mostly around DC. Up until very recently, khaki was not worn within the beltway. Therefore, anybody working within the beltway wore dress blues. When outside the beltway, the majority of officers will wear khaki for comfort. ================================================================== From: Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 02:41:24 -0500 (EST) Uniform of the Day and Alternate Uniform are always posted in the POD. Uniform of the day in winter is Blues and Summer is Whites. Alternate uniforms may be working blues, summer whites or khaki depending on your local (although khaki is now a working uniform inside the beltway). You are never wrong in blues! ================================================================== From: Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 02:56:52 -0500 (EST) Tailoring is still a personal preference, though I have found its better to have them tooooo large than toooo small. Women have more restrictions (i.e skirt length, outer gear length) but that only makes sense (no mini or midi lengths-must be just at ro just below the knee). Tight fits only seem to be in Hollywood. They wear flight suits to tight you couldn't move in the cockpit! ================================================================== From: Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 09:37:12 -0400 (EDT) Khaki is tha are year all purpose uniform. Itcomes in plain cotton and certified navy twill. The plain cotton ar working khaki's and are required aboard ship for fire purposes. CNTs are considered dress and are worn ashore. New fabrication coming according to this weeks Navy Times wich will add a wool blend tot his uniform for the winter. Dress Blue is the appropriate uniform any time of year. Perfect for when your civivlian counterparts might be wearing a suit. This uniform can be dressed up with a sword and large medals for cerimonial wear inthe winter. Dark black is the winter working uniform and has woll in the blend. Most o us refer to this uniform as Nazi Blacks and tend not to wear this. Summer white is the uniform most assoicated with the Navy. Its made of CNT and can be worn when civilians would be in a summer weight suit. Also available in cotton fo ship board. Chocker whites or service dress is a ceremonial uniform. Then there is winter and summer mess unifofms. Hope this helps, I make a closet selection from these choices daily. ================================================================== Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 16:14:28 -0500 From: jjuan Tichen1215@aol.com wrote: > >Question: Can both female and male military personnel "choose" to wear >formal dress uniforms? Servicewomen at formal civillian occassions wear uniforms in accordance with male officers, or evening dress in accordance with local custom. At formal evening receptions, the formality of the occassion is usually indicated by the words "black tie" written or engraved in the lower right-hand corner of the invitation. "White tie" indicates a very formal occassion. "Decorations" always indicate full evening dress. A reception is usually black tie, unless specified otherwise. Women wear eveing dress and long gloves, and men wear mess or dinner dress uniforms, or the prescribed uniform according to the season. I guess the easiest way to put it is that the proper attire is dictated by the hosts or hostesses as indicated on the invitation, so it varies. Yiuheng "Jodo" Juan ================================================================== From: Marty Merritt Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:53:47 -0500 The best military uniform resources on the Web are: http://www.hqmc.usmc.mil/mcur.nsf/ for Marine Corps Uniform Regulations and http://www.bupers.navy.mil for Navy Uniform Regs. The Navy site downloads images off of a CD-ROM and requires the Acrobat Reader plug-in, but it has black-and-white photos and descriptions of every uniform for men and women. The Marine site promises more photos soon but has very few now. It does have thorough text descriptions of the uniforms, though. "Mess Dress" is no longer authorized, but "Evening Dress" is. ================================================================== From: Marty Merritt Subject: Navy Whites, more than you wanted to know... Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 16:12:41 -0500 From: Marty Merritt One of these days I'm going to sit down and write all this down. There are lots of white uniforms: Dinner Dress Jacket, White is the short mess jacket worn with a dark blue pants, a formal shirt, gold cummerbund, and black tie. Miniature medals are worn, and women have the option of either a long or knee-length dark blue skirt. Worn for fancy black-tie dinner/dancing evening occasions in summer when a white dinner jacket would be appropriate for civilian men. We saw it at the NATO Ball in "Washington Holiday." Full Dress White is the choker white tunic and white pants worn with large medals, a sword, and white gloves. This is ONLY worn for military ceremonies such as commissioning and change of command (and weddings, although the sword is not worn in church) Service Dress White is the choker white tunic and pants with ribbons and no sword or gloves. This is the "dress whites" that people usually refer to. Although it's theoretically a daytime everyday uniform for dressy conditions (coat-and-tie equivalent), it is usually reserved for more formal circumstances. Is this the one you mean, Wendy? Summer White is the open-collar white shirt with white pants that we see around the JAG office all the time. This, in many commands, is the summer analogue to Service Dress Blue even though it doesn't have a tie. It's considered a little dressier than khakis, and I see it frequently on Navy office personnel. Dress White for Enlisted personnel is the white "sailor suit" jumper with either medals or ribbons and a black neckerchief. Enlisted personnel also wear Summer White open collar shirts and pants with sleeve marks instead of hard shoulder boards. There are two interesting Tropical White variants: Tropical White is the Summer White shirt with white shorts and white socks. Tropical Dinner Dress White is the dark blue skirt or pants with a gold cummerbund and the Summer White shirt with miniature medals. All officers' white uniforms have hard shoulder boards except for the women's dress white tunic which has delicate gold sleeve stripes. Hope this helps, Marty ================================================================== From: T. M. Giorgianni Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 10:13:25 PST Subject: [JAG] Uniform referrals...another viewpoint.... O.K. you guys on going to drive me crazy here! With 'Dress ' whatever...I have to often stop and think *very* carefully as to what uniform you're talking about here. (And this from the lady who's not only a service brat but works with this stuff everyday!) Can I offer the definitions that I work with re: uniforms? (Just to give you all another point of view, these are the general ones that will work across the board no matter what service you're with...) Battle Dress Uniform a.k.a. BDU a.k.a. Camoflague 'Dress Uniform' a.k.a. 'Duty' Uniform This would be Harm and A.J.'s white uniform, Khaki's (in summer) dark Blue coat and pants with the white shirt and tie (in winter) and Mac's olive green uniform as well as the USMC uniform with the Dark Blue coat. 'Mess Dress Uniform' a.k.a. 'Dress Uniform' There are two -main- variants on this depending on the function, 'Mess Dress Blues' and 'Mess Dress Whites'. (In this case Patrick, even the Army has a 'Blues' uniform. ;> ) Mess Dress Blues are the ones you will probably see the most. If you look at a Presidential function and see a man in the background with a dark blue jacket with tail's, gold scroll work up the sleeves, medals on the chest over a (usually) tux style shirt and cummbund, wearing lighter blue pants (with or without the single gold stripe going up the side)and 'spit shine shoes'. You're seeing a man in the Mess Dress Blues. The closest Mess Dress uniform that JAG fans would have seen would have been the uniform Harm was wearing to the embassy in 'Embassy'. (That I can think of.) >Plus many think him in dress whites and her in dress blues make >a nice looking couple. Guilty as charged! Makes me wish had been taping the NFL game a couple of weeks ago. They had a commercial 'blip' for JAG with an (I think) F14 flying out of the picture and Harm and Mac watching it as they turned towrd the camera. They were dressed in these uniforms. -Dragonfire ==================================================================