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‘Heritage to horizon’

The Air Force is ready to test a new uniform.

Cue the Benny Goodman.

Since taking over as the service’s top officer in late 2005, Gen. T. Michael Moseley has made it clear that today’s airmen will shape the future force by understanding its rich past — a little something he likes to call “heritage to horizon.”

To Moseley, it’s important to understand, for example, how the Middle East’s social and economic landscape will influence U.S. military doctrine — just as it’s important you understand how early proponents of air power, guys such as Billy Mitchell and Henry “Hap” Arnold, helped shape today’s Air Force and its current war-fighting philosophy: “fly, fight, win.”

And it’s really important to Moseley that you look the part.

Airmen first learned of the leadership’s plan to overhaul the service dress coat around the middle of last year, when photos surfaced of two prototypes named for Mitchell and Arnold. The former boasted a throat-hugging mandarin collar similar to that on the uniform worn during World War I by members of the Army Air Service. The latter, with roots dating to the World War II era, was defined by its plump, pointy lapels.

Those designs were rough and approximate, and Air Force uniform officials were quick to point out as much. They knew then only the direction this project was heading, not necessarily its destination: The new coat would convey Moseley’s belief that heritage must be ubiquitous, a part of every airman.

But why recast old ideas? Hasn’t the Air Force been there, done that? Furthermore, after just 60 years on its own, how much heritage does the service really have?

Borrowed, blue

From a style standpoint, the notion of a throwback coat makes good sense, said Stan Herman, who heads the Council for Fashion Designers of America. Having developed attire for corporate goliaths such as McDonald’s and FedEx, he regards a good uniform as the right blend of old and new.

“There has to be history in a uniform,” Herman told Air Force Times last year when officials were studying the two prototypes, “but they have to be modern. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true.

“It’s like taking a Bentley car and modernizing it. You keep the essence without going too retro.”

Air Force officials believe they’ve done just that. While they tout the new service dress coat’s contemporary fit and features, its design leans heavily on military clothing concepts born well before the first F-35 — or the first F-16, for that matter.

Think B-17.

The coat airmen will wear-test later this year borrows bits of both prototypes, though it more resembles the attire worn during the 1940s, around the time the Air Force split off from the Army and became an independent branch of the military — Gen. Hap Arnold’s heyday.

And while the new coat preserves the Air Force blue airmen know now, its cut harkens to a time when airmen wore colors most often associated with soldiers: green, brown and black.

This evolution is of keen interest to Tech. Sgt. Jack Waid, who works with the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. His collection of old Air Force uniforms includes numerous specimens from the last several decades. He lugged a mess of them across the country a few months ago, when the new Air Force Memorial was dedicated beside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. As part of the festivities, Waid’s gear was put on and paraded around.

It was an opportunity to educate, Waid said. Seeing, touching and wearing these old garments can provide airmen some perspective on current plans to create a uniform with strong ties to the past.

“When you put things behind glass,” he said, “it means, ‘I don’t want people touching it and messing with it.’ I want people to experience how uncomfortable [these old uniforms] are, how itchy they are.”

That the Air Force has failed over the years to pin down and stick with one distinct style for its dress uniform is evidence, Waid believes, of the service’s struggle to emerge from the Army’s shadow and establish its own, unambiguous identity. Since 1947, he said, the service has dedicated a lot of time and effort to reinventing itself.

“I jokingly say that in the last 60 years, we’ve changed our uniform more than the Army and Navy combined in their 200-year history,” Waid said.

How to define heritage

Since Moseley assumed his current post, the days have gotten pretty busy for airmen working at the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute at Maxwell Air Force Base-Gunter Annex in Alabama. Chief Master Sgt. Malcolm McVicar Jr., who runs the show there, said his team provided a historical uniform study to the chief of staff’s office in late 2005, just a few months after Moseley started his new job.

The institute maintains a thorough collection of Air Force uniforms in addition to an index of past uniform regulations and meeting minutes for the Air Force Uniform Board.

“We knew that with his strong passion for heritage, we were going to ramp up,” he said.

McVicar tells folks he has a dream job. Like Waid, he’s a collector, having inherited a “mini-museum” of memorabilia upon the death of his dad, who also was a chief master sergeant. With a son serving in the Air Force as well, heritage is more than a hobby for him; it’s in his blood.

Tradition elicits pride, McVicar said. Ditching the service’s current blue business suit in favor of a true military dress uniform will let airmen view themselves on even ground with soldiers, sailors and Marines, he said.

And McVicar believes that’s at the heart of Moseley’s mission.

“We are not going to dress like it’s 1940,” he said. “We are going to dress with a more pronounced military image.”

When he addresses groups of airmen at Maxwell-Gunter, McVicar often wears the service dress coat his father wore before retiring in 1976 — a shade of Air Force blue known as “1549.” Of all the uniforms at the Enlisted Heritage Research Institute, that one is his favorite.

“I wear it out of pride for my father,” he said, “and because it has that military image.”

WANT TO READ MORE?

Pick up the March 26 issue of Air Force Times, on newsstands now.

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OTHER COOL STUFF

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