Marines will now be wearing only one camouflage uniform year-round, utilizing the woodland pattern and saving the desert camouflage uniform for deployments.
While Marines have worn desert “cammies” in spring and summer for the past eight years (utilizing the woodlands in fall and winter), USMC Commandant General Robert Neller has decreed that the alternating uniforms are to come to an end.
In terms of Designated Service Uniforms, the dress code will change with the seasons: Bravos will be worn in winter and Charlies will be worn in the summer, according to the new regulations that were released earlier this month.
As far as the act of sleeve-rolling is concerned, the standard will be sleeves-down in the winter and up in the summer, although commanders will have leeway depending on weather conditions and deployment criteria.
According to the Marine Corps Times, it is currently unknown why the woodland uniform was chosen as the year-round uniform, and Neller was unavailable for comment on Sunday night.
Marines view their uniforms as sacred, thus meaning that every uniform change has a potential to cause quite a bit of buzz when implemented or even suggested. When former Commandant General James Amos banned Marines from rolling sleeves for three years, it was the incessant badgering from his wife that finally caused him to reverse the decision.
“My wife has beat the crap out of me for the last two-and-a-half, three years over that decision,” Amos said in 2014. “All you sleeves-up aficionados, she has been on me.”
Neller’s new uniform decisions come just one month shy of a year after he gave commanders the ability to apply for waivers when it came to changing uniforms based on needs and climate. During that time, he also announced a rejection of a USMC Uniform Board suggestion that Marines wear service uniforms when not deployed/in training, as well as the recommendation to remove desert camouflage uniforms from Marines’ sea bag.
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