Sailors deployed in the middle of Iraq have many reasons to feel out of place, far from their usual domains of water and air. But they also stand out as the only U.S. military personnel still wearing the tri-color desert camouflage uniform (DCU) dating from just after operation Desert Storm. Even more discomforting, a fair number of Iraqi soldiers are now also wearing DCUs, having received them as military surplus from our government. Yet the U.S. Navy continues to deploy SeaBees, individual-augmentee Sailors, and Fifth Fleet staff to the Central Command area of responsibility wearing the same uniform as the Iraqi 7th Army Division and Royal Marines of Tonga, among others. It is time for the Navy to move on.
DCUs are one of three uniforms Sailors might be wearing in Iraq. Those serving with Army units in the Central Command theater have, in accordance with Navy policy since 2008, been issued the ineffectual green-and-gray camouflage Army combat uniform (ACU) now being abandoned by that service. Navy corpsmen and chaplains attached to Marine Corps units have sensibly been authorized to wear the Marine pattern desert digital cammies of their hosts. However, SeaBees and many individual augmentee Sailors working in similar proximity to, and even under direct tactical control of Marines must wear the DCUs.
Meanwhile, back in the States, all Sailors are compelled to buy three sets of a blue digital camouflage uniform with no combat utility—the Navy working uniform (NWU) Type I. Disparagingly known as “aquaflage” or “blueberries,” this uniform was developed over several years and rationalized as a replacement for dungarees, even though the Navy already had in its clothing inventory numerous superior options. Coveralls and ball caps could have replaced dungarees at no cost, with a simple change to regulations (still an option today). The blue cammies may be trumpeted as a source of pride in boot camp, but they bring chuckles from our Army and Air Force brethren who proudly wear their tactical camouflage combat uniforms at home and on deployment, on base and in town. It is hard to defend the requirement that all Sailors buy these uniforms when they can be worn neither in combat ashore nor in the mall.
It is time for the Navy to make sensible uniform policies. Cold logic supplies several points for guidance. First, the U.S. military should not wear a uniform worn by another nation. Both the Geneva Conventions and the American public expect respectable militaries to wear distinctive uniforms. Second, there is no reason why the Department of the Navy should continue to maintain six camouflage patterns—DCU, NWU Type I (blue), NWU Type II (desert), NWU Type III (woodland), Marine pattern desert and woodland—while the Army and the Air Force are converging on a common MultiCam pattern. Cost-effectiveness and efficiency dictate that the Navy should reduce the total number of separate clothing articles. It should retire limited-use items and change policies to broaden the utility of those it retains. Finally, all Sailors deploying on land to combat zones should wear state-of-the-art camouflage uniforms as effective as those of other U.S. service members.
Within these parameters, the Navy has three reasonable choices for desert camouflage: Marine desert digital, NWU Type II desert (ironically restricted to SEAL use only because of Marine objections that it looks too much like the Marine pattern), or the MultiCam universal-environment design now being issued to Army and Air Force deployers to Afghanistan. It has been historically proven that the branches of the U.S. military can share common camouflage uniforms while preserving service-unique insignia and identity. Such commonality makes sense in this day of shrinking budgets.
For its stateside working uniform, the Navy should sundown the blue NWU and transition to its choice of the tactical camouflage uniform listed above. It should likewise increase the utility of that tactical camouflage uniform by permitting personnel to wear it in public as do the Army and Air Force.
We need to clean up decades of confused Navy uniform policies and follow logic toward a seabag that reflects practicality, cost-effectiveness, tactical focus, joint interoperability, and adherence to national and international conventions. The most obvious first step is to square away our camouflage.