Moot,
In the USAF, there are a lot of people who think that our battle dress uniform ought to look as crisp and sharply pressed as our blues. The uniform design however does not lend itself to that. Specifically, the expandable cargo style pockets on the pants and shirt look terrible if you take a shirt off the rack and just press it. The expandable "cargo" part of the pockets sticks out and looks horrible, and the thick buttons used to hold the pockets shut make it so when you press or iron the pockets, you either break the buttons or the pocket flap curls up and sticks out, again looking quite horrible.
The only solution to this problem, since those in power insist on our BDUs being starched and pressed, is to cut off the buttons and make all the pockets "fake" by sewing them shut and removing the extra material that made them useful in the first place.
You see, the USAF is trying to be more "combat ready" like the other forces are, so to help the corporate mentality we're all wearing combat uniforms instead of blues whenever possible. But since we're just faking it and a good portion of our force actually works indoors in air conditioned buildings and will never ever actually have to do anything dirty, those chair-force soldiers insist that our BDUs must be starched and pressed.
It's pissed me off for more than 16 years now. We finally have a new and improved utility uniform that is made of material that supposedly doesn't need ironing, and in a design that doesn't need starching or pressing, yet we all know that some chair-force pseudo-soldier somewhere is going to insist that not only does his troops wear the new utilities all the time even though they're in desk jobs, he'll also insist that they starch and press them, putting creases where they don't belong, etc. Those chair-force types are going to ruin the uniform wear rules for those of us who actually have to work out "in the field" (ie. anywhere not in a nice air conditioned building behind a desk).
I've been in a non-flying status for 2 years now, and the ONLY reason I've continued wearing my flight suit is because it's wing policy to wear a utility uniform instead of blues, and because if I wore BDUs like I really wanted to, I'd have to starch and press them to avoid getting hassled by the chair force starch-and-press types.
I work with a lot of army troops and marines, and they all look really sharp and business-like in their new design utility uniforms. And they don't have creases starched into their sleeves. But guess what - someone somewhere is going to make his troops starch a crease into the new USAF utilities, and from there it's only a short step back to sewing the pockets shut and starching the crap out of what is supposed to be a utility uniform.
They want it both ways - They want to present a sharp garrison appearance behind their desks, but they also want to foster a combat mentality in the troops. Well, you can have it both ways if you draw the line between desk duty and field work, but instead they're furiously pounding it into the enlisted force that they're a bunch of un-patriotic slackers if they don't have creases in their utilities or starch the heck out of uniforms that are supposed to be utilities.
I say suck it up and wear blues if you're in a job that needs creases on your sleeves, and keep the utility uniform for it's intended purpose.
But I'm gonna lose. There are too many 30 yr Chief Master Sergeants who disagree with me, because that's the way they were growed up and that's the way it will stay.
A Chief's opinion generally carries a lot more weight than a rated Major in a 1 year staff job between flying assignments, and I'm not stupid enough to try to challenge a Chief over a stupid uniform policy, because that's HIS job, not mine. So I'll go along being a disgruntled pilot who refuses to wear BDUs because the wear standards are, in my opinion, based on an absolutely incorrect set of priorities. Since the Chiefs set and enforce the standards based on guidance from the General Officers, my opinion doesn't matter too much.
