Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
Two things from the late Cold War.
When I was in merchant service, they issued us long wool "convoy coats". I only saw it once, with the appropriate buttons, in the Navy when a chief came out for his quarterdeck watch in dress blues. Buttons in the front, a half belt with two buttons in the back.
When I was in, the working enlisted uniform was blue dungarees. When I was building an aux security force from the ground up with very little budget, it was amazing to realize how far away one could see a sailor so dressed in the forest.
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When an E6 is promoted to E7 as a feature of the initiation they will do a seabag inspection. The newly minted chief is expected to have a full set of chief uniforms. This is a huge expense for the new chief made worse by the CPO mess requiring that the new chiefs pay for rounds at the chief's club. So it is common for the Navy/Marine Corps Relief Society [NMCRS] to make zero-interest loans available to all newly promoted chiefs. My Dw volunteered for the NMCRS for a long time, so she was involved in the paperwork for doing that.
When we were stationed in Scotland there was a Royal Navy base nearby and they had a uniform thrift shop. The Royal Navy thrift shop had 'Bridge coats' that were identical to the bridge coats that were required among US Naval officers and chiefs. A few times I saw some black marketing of Royal Navy bridge coats to go to newly minted US chiefs.
As I recall they were a pea coat that was longer, had different placement of the buttons, and obviously different buttons themselves.
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