by cobalt545 Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:16 pm
The horrible garrison uniform was only in service for just under 5 years. When I joined the regular army in 1996 we were issued this uniform along with all the other stuff. As a recruit it was part of our locker display for morning inspection. When we finally got to our battalion we turned the jackets in to the tailor to get the badges sewn on. So after spending $20 to have my PPCLI and infantry trade badges sewn on a week later we were told the garrison uniform is now obsolete. Ugh.
Personally, I was glad to see it gone. It was an impractical, ugly uniform that made no sense to me. Why do I need a camo jacket for the office? It was made mostly of polyester and was hot to wear. Even in winter I used to sweat my ass off in it. It also required a lot of maintenance. Spit shon boots and crisply ironed shirt and pants. It was a total pain in the ass. The old school NCOs were treating it like a dress uniform and wanted the troops to be well turned out at all times. This made it impractical as a daily work uniform since the troops were reluctant to get their boots scuffed or get the uniform dirty in any way. It ate up lots of your personal time and money trying to keep it in parade ready state. Lots of laundry, lots of ironing, lots of polishing.
It was rumoured that the garrison uniform was brought into service at the request of non-combat arms types who wanted to feel good about themselves since they never went to the field but still wanted to feel like soldiers. I was glad to see that useless POS get phased out. Now we only have 2 uniforms, the CADPAT combat uniform and our DEU dress uniforms. So much simpler and more practical.