Main Task
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Not in Outer Space.
Not in China.
Not in Iran.
Not among thousands of hajjis they’re importing.
They have located and identified the enemy and they are here and they is You and Me.
Today’s “I’m old enough to remember” saying:
I’m old enough to remember when the Space Force was ridiculed and condemned for being Trump’s evil plan to nuke China, our oldest and bestest allies, from orbit. Or something like that.
Now we get, as you so perfectly put it, Don, uniforms straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Clown show is right.
To boldly fail where no one has failed before.
Just as long as they don’t bring in the skant for men:
They are trying their hardest to imitate the Star Trek dress uniforms without making it so glaringly obvious a non-fan will notice.
Eeeuw. That skirt guy was one of many reasons that I stopped watching any of the Star Trek sequels. All I need is my DVD set of the original.
“Just as long as they don’t bring in the skant for men:”
What has been seen cannot be unseen!
The US Navy foisted the Zumwalt uniforms on us enlisted persons from 73 to 86.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/709317010048401207/
Thankfully tradition was restored:
http://www.uniforms-4u.com/p-us-navy-enlisted-white-jumper-uniform-18676.aspx
http://www.uniforms-4u.com/p-us-navy-enlisted-dress-blue-crackerjack-3881.aspx
Well, not completely. The US Navy still does asinine things to excellence (to be exceeded only by the US Space Force, obviously):
https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/References/US-Navy-Uniforms/Uniform-Regulations/Chapter-3/Male-Enlisted/Working/
BTW, notice that in the PR photo at CNN, the black woman is out in front first.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/us-space-force-uniforms/index.html
You can’t have a white man out in front any longer. That’s racist and a micro-aggression.
All us old time submarine sailors find the new Space Force uniforms infinitely amusing. Now we have a service branch to pick on besides the Air Force. And BTW, down under at a 1000 feet, it doesn’t matter if you’re a black woman (yup, women are on subs now with the predictable results) or a white man; if you don’t obey orders and do your job per procedure, then you better learn to breathe sea water.
What’s the big whoop about mimicking Hollywood for uniforms? Millions were spent to develop those styles and they look cool. Image matters and drawing a connection between SciFi and the Space Force seems like an excellent way to recruit the right sort of folks. Scoff if we must but a Space Force is a good idea and will one day have some of the most coveted positions in the military. Besides, so much of the technology today was conceptualized (consciously or not) through 1950s – 1980s SciFi, I should think we’d be open to keeping that connection solid. I don’t think this is at all embarrassing and only wish the U.S. government gave as much thought to border security as it does to uniforms.
The Space Force is a good idea and I supported it when Trump established it. A fixation on uniforms is a mistake. Historically we have had inferior uniforms to most of our foes, with our troops looking as if they worked in a garbage dump, which has made the victories of our troops all the sweeter. Our military should stop obsessing over uniforms and start obsessing over how to win wars.
“We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There’s not a piece of feather in our host–
Good argument, I hope, we will not fly–
And time hath worn us into slovenry:
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck
The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads
And turn them out of service”
Henry V.
Well said.
I’m not seeing what the issue is with the uniforms displayed. Not sure if these are meant to be working uniforms or dress blues.
The problem isn’t the uniforms. The problem is that at an indeterminate point in the past, standards for promotion favored adherence to university-generated norms over conventional military norms. Not sure when this began, but the controversies over Spencer Rapone suggest that the decay of West Point began around 2004. Kurt Schlicter has suggested that the thing to do is to cashier the flag ranks en bloc and invite a few to remain.
The Steve Carell comedy Space Force has an episode where the First Lady designs uniforms and Steve (as the commander in chief of the force) has to deal with it. PS Patton. designed the first tank crew uniforms but I don’t think they were used.