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Tropical Coats Worn Outside Southeast Asia.


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CSM Austin, LTC Pruniski, BG Collins (V Corps Artillery)
and Col
Keith.
Grafenwoehr 1969

 

The Coat with standard fatique pants as seen on Brigadier General James Lawton Collins Jr, V Corps Arty commander. He is Lighting Joe Collins' nephew, the son of his brother James L Collins, also a General. And this is some thing I never knew, Lighting Joe is the uncle of astronaut Milcheal Collins of Apollo 11.

 

 

The coat was probably a bring back from Collins' two year tour at MACV.

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Isn't he also wearing a sword belt and an ascot? Wonder if he had a swagger stick and pearl-handled revolver too?

That there is the standard General Officers waist/pistol belt, no doubt descended from the old sword belts, it was worn alot with fatique items for the most part. Seen it worn by the BG in command of the 172nd LIB in 82 with BDUs.

 

And it's still done, as witnessed here by the 3rd Div Asst Division Commander Christopher Hughes.

 

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GOs can wear whatever uniforms they want to. You should see the Buck Rogers outfit that is in

the Patton Museum. Patton designed especially for himself!

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Tropical Coats, aka "jungle jackets", were authorized wear in a number of hot weather areas.

 

Korea, Panama, Hawaii, Ft. Hood. They started showing up at Ft. Hood when they were being retired out of the system. This is why when you find one with a 25th ID or a 2nd Armored patch, it wasn't necessarily worn in Vietnam.

 

Emergency issues of Vietnam era jungle jackets were made during the Grenada campaign when the first issue BDU's started producing heat casualties even amongst our best troops.

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The "jungle fatigue" uniform was authorized to be purchased and worn just about Army-wide in about 1984-85 in hot weather until the lightweight BDUs were fielded. I bought a set at the Clothing Sales Store on Ft. Myer. They have a HQ Company US Army SSI on them.

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After thinking about it some more, some of the first ones that showed up at Ft. Hood were for units that went on exercise in Central America in the early 1980's. And then as atb noted above, they later became more available.

 

On a side note, the women's version of the hot weather fatigue was distributed even earlier. I remember many of the female soldiers wearing them at Fort Hood in the late 1970's. They were fine in that climate and gave them a more distinctive look.

 

Germany was a different matter. I knew some of the female soldiers wore them even the colder climate, but many opted for male versions of the OG-107. The Air Force, on the other hand, created a female version of the standard OG-107. I believe some of our troops got their hands on those and wore them as well.

 

When the hot weather BDU came out, a lot of people were quick to adopt them.

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Cant remember where I got this pic, might be on the forum already but its possibly Fort Bragg '63-'65.

 

Definitely early because of type 1 JJs, white t shirts, no foreign jump wings and black boots. Also the pistol belts worn with JJs looks cool

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Lets see some photos of really off the wall locations where a Tropical uniform coat might of been worn.Bragg, Panama, some stateside post like, Lewis, Hood, Benning, Stewart, yeah we know that, how bout Turkey, Italy? more from West Germany, or even Alaska? :lol:

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for these, anyone else don't hesitate to add it here.

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This is my father wearing jungle fatigues at Fort Gordon, Georgia - Winter/Spring, 1968. He was serving as an assistant drill instructor for an AIT unit for the on-the-job training portion of the NCO Candidate Course.

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Thye 5th Grp guys look like jungle pants-you can see the pockets.

The regular fatigue pants were cut slimmer and heavier material.

I don't believe a mixture was ever authorised outside of the field.

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7th PSYOP Group Commander, Maurice W. Lundelius wearing the Ryukyus Command SSI on his jungle fatigues during a leaflet mission - 1967. The 7th was stationed on Okinawa but several of its members served TDY tours in Vietnam throughout the war, so this is probably in Vietnam. I'm not sure if the jungle fatigues were worn on Okinawa as well.

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7th PSYOP Group Commander, Maurice W. Lundelius wearing the Ryukyus Command SSI on his jungle fatigues during a leaflet mission - 1967. The 7th was stationed on Okinawa but several of its members served TDY tours in Vietnam throughout the war, so this is probably in Vietnam. I'm not sure if the jungle fatigues were worn on Okinawa as well.b

 

I remember the 7 PSYOPS on Okinawa in 1970. My unit had printing jobs done at their print plant. I remember being offered samples of the various leaflets they had produced, but I only took one (I still have it). I do not recall seeing any of the 7 PSYOP troops wearing "jungle fatigues." The only soldiers in Oki-based units I remember seeing wearing them were the 1 Special Forces Group guys or soldiers on orders to RVN going through pre-deployment RVN Training. Many local hires with the grounds keeping crews wore them.

 

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Are we doing ERDL JJs as well?

 

509th In Italy, Date unknown

Thanks for adding photo RECON, true they were worn in Vietnam, but select units of the Army and Air Force were issued ERDLs as a standard issue in the 1970s, generally for field use. The OD one's as mentioned could and were issued out and worn by units in say Panama, or at some posts during summer months in the early 80s as an alternative for the first run of the BDUs which were heavy weight. I guess the general idea I had when I started this topic was to show OD Tropical Coats being worn in areas of the world where you really woudn't expect to see them being worn either during the war itself ( like the late 60s one in Germany) or in the 70s.

 

Where's that photo of one being worn in Greenland :lol:

 

But seriously, I'm gonna check around for images of the Kagnew Station, and bases in Turkey, I'm wondering if they were wore there. If anyone finds them, add them here.

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