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| USMC Dress Blues |
I recently got into a bit of a spat with one of my twitter followers. It wasn't anything substantial just some good natured arguing. This year they'd allowed gay servicemen to march in San Francisco's pride parade. Being Canadian seeing a handful of gays marching in the parade is old news, I have no problem with it. However I voiced something I believe to the root of my being. I believe a formal military dress uniform such as the United States Marine Corps dress blues shouldn't be an option for marching in the parade.
Now before every reader gets up in arms over this belief I hold, hear me out. I'm not homophobic, far from it. It has nothing to do with it being a gay soldier wearing a form dress uniform in a gay parade, I'd have the exact same beef if a heterosexual wore the same uniform in a straight pride parade if we had them. This has to do with how I view this one type of
uniform in every branch of the Canadian, American or any other countries service.
Being a guy with a substantial military family history on both sides of the Atlantic. Maybe I view the uniform different to a lot of people especially non-servicemen which this spat usually happens with.
To me, a soldier's dress blues are a ceremonial uniform which should only be worn to official military events, galas, balls, funerals or presentations. Presentations would extend into holidays that honour the service or fallen soldiers along with educational purposes. The only time I can see a suitable exception to this, one's wedding. However I there are quite a few other uniforms that do the job just fine for showing one's military pride while marching for one's gay pride.
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| USMC Charlies |
If one for whatever reason decided to go all out and wear a uniform that shows one's medals than why not the a service uniform such as the USMC Charlies?
Most military branches have some uniform with in this classification. The colours are probably different the Air Force would probably have light blue shirts and dark blue pants in lieu of the USMC's khaki and green combo and the hat can vary and pants depending on sex or rank.
Considering that pride is in the dead of the summer. Most servicemen who decided to go on a pride march would opt out of dress blues and even uniforms like charlie in favour of the Utility uniform. Because the utility uniform allows for some wiggle room.
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| USMC Utility Uniform |
Now the combats/ utility uniform is far more versatile, yes camouflage is unique to each branch of the military. The utility uniform allows your to remove the jacket and just wear a branch issued t-shirt, roll the sleeves up and frankly camo is distinctly rugged and sexy while still being fun. Come to think of it in Toronto it looks like most of the soldier's opt for their utility uniforms and often forgo the jacket. What I like about the utility uniforms personally for something like pride is to the untrained eye all the branches look about the same. They become one large unit visually, something gay servicemen had to do in order to get that ability to serve openly. Navy, Marine, Army, Airforce all had to work at the same goal in one cohesive unit. Achieving that unified look could never happen with any other issued uniform because all the branches have drastically different dress uniforms.
Thats just my thoughts on that.
