Originally Posted by
sigtauenus
I wear the utilities every day for work, the two times in the past 3 years I wore my charlies was for a promotion picture and a change of command. We did have a CGI a couple months ago and I had to break out the alpha's, first time I wore them since I reported almost 3 years ago.
Technically, since utilities are a "field" uniform, my uniform of the day should be charlies. But, its not. Everybody at my command wears utilities, except the career planner.
So, I change my clothes twice a day. Add in PT during the work day, and its easily 4 or 5 times a day. That's a lot of wasted time. The NEX gas station is more expensive than the Wawa down the street, so I don't use it except when I'm no kidding on empty.
This past weekend my wife drove my truck and left me with less than a quarter tank, and I wore my utilities home on Friday so I wore them on Monday morning. I was swamped at work and forgot about it, then PT'd at the end of the day, and left work right after PT, got in the truck, saw the gas gauge and thought "oh ****." I made it home, but geeze, what a pain in the butt. And my wife wonders why I don't like the cars getting below 1/4 tank.
I really don't have a problem with the new rules except for the part about pumping gas. ATM, food, even dry cleaning you can use the drivethrough. Not too many full service stations around any more. I just really need to hawk the gas gauge now and probably cut my wife off from driving my truck.
Contrary to the article in the original post, in 10 years in the Marines I've never been able to walk in to a fast food joint, or go grocery shopping, or go shopping anywhere. It was my understanding that we could use the drive-through, use an ATM, pump gas, and make stops at daycare or buy necessities such as milk or bread. That's it. I don't have a problem with that.
If Marines were violating those rules they were wrong and their leadership should have taken care of it.
There is a rational application of this. The whole issue comes down to discipline. You tell a Marine to do this or that, regardless if it makes sense or not, because it instills discpline. While today he may ***** about not being able to stop for gas in his uniform, tomorrow you may need to tell him to take a machine gun nest, and just as much as he learns some discipline from it, you also learn who you can count on by how much they obey the rules that don't make any sense.
***? You let your wife drive your truck? Seriously though, I agree that the policy could be a pain in the you know what if you live off base. It never effected me, as I was single when I was in and lived in the squad bays. Although I did have that one girlfriend in Honolulu who did have a fantasy of me coming over with camoflage grease paint still all over my face, but that's a story for a different message board.
When I was flying smokejumpers out of Ft. Wainwright, AK this summer, there were always soldiers in the local Fred Meyer's in cammies. I don't know if it was of the instilling of the policy from the Marines, but I thought that it looked un-professional. The place looked like a PX. I was actually surprised to see a very pregnant female soldier wearing cammies. Do they actually make those in maternity sizes?
As far as the wear of charlies or anything else, it was impractical in the 03's as most of our time that wasn't in the field was preparing for the field, ie cleaning weapons, gear, training, etc. Pretty much any other uniform was reserved for inspections. I never once wore my wool alpha's after the tailor shop!
I think that your last paragraph, the last sentence really, hits the nail on the head, Sig.
Stonefly
Edit: Ha ha! The board automatically censors expressions? I thought I was being good Saying "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" at the beginning of my post, and when I hit submit it put up three asterisks.