Trad Duffel Bag

There were a lot of bloggers going through attics over the holidays. Maybe we're all looking to the past for inspiration as well as waist sizes to be proud of. Hey, I wasn't always a fat bastard.

Last winter Rugby came out with a pretty snappy field coat. It was a dead ringer for the Army Issued Field jacket. Rugby wanted $350 for their version. Mine was free. Actually, I paid $20 for this at a Army Surplus store and had the patches from my issued field coat sewn on. I did this for two reasons: 1-The purchased field coat is from the early 50s and looks better than what I was issued in the 70s. 2- I can't fit into my issued field coat.

A mixture in a duffel bag of my stuff and my fathers. Like a Bordeaux, the tannins have softened and the material has taken on a patina. A mishianza of issued (my stuff) and purchased (Dad's stuff) apparel made by manufacturers long gone.

The helmet graffiti from a Cold War steel pot hardly means what it used to. How I miss godless communism.

I wore my Dad's dress blue trousers to high school. The old man would have never allowed this so I put a pair of jeans over them at home and took the jeans off when I got to school. While shooting for a John Wayne like effect --it came off more like F Troop. I do not recommend this to the Army Brats of today.

My father was on a couple of rifle teams in the Army and I was given this ^ jacket when I joined a rifle team at Ft Monroe at 15. I remember wood blocks of .22 LR cartridges and my father coaching me. Kneeling next to my prone position he whispered, "Don't look at the target. Put the blur of the target on top of your sight." Four years later on a M16 range I qualified second highest in my basic training company (76/80) and got to ride back in the Mess Hall truck rather than force march back to the barracks with the sadistic, Drill Sergeant Hunt. I never did thank my father for this.

Fatigues from the late 70s and early 80s. All cotton before the wash and wear started popping up everywhere. U. S. Army stood for, "Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet"

A Judo Gi. Soft as cashmere today but I remember it hard and crusty in high school. A third degree brown belt. Sankyo was it? My father was taking Judo as well. I beat him to the Brown and offered him a Randori. He told me he would bite my adam's apple out and spit it in my face. I never brought the subject up again.

A bespoke hybrid of sorts. A Vietnamese field jacket custom lined with a U.S. Army issued poncho liner. My father wore this in Vietnam along with the much sought after French Foreign Legion Paratrooper smock. Currently in my collection as well. Army poncho liners from the 60s were the softest things going. Having your sleeping bag lined with one of these beautiful babies was real luxury and if not the sign of a lifer...certainly the sign of an erudite hedonist.

The label ^ appears to be all the rage in fashion today. Knocked off by RL and his designers (I'd still like to know if any of his people ever served?). I guess they like the realism of washing instructions. Army labels were always written for morons. For instance, the always interesting warning on a Claymore Mine, "This Side Towards Enemy" Good to know your audience.

That's ^ a Class A Blouse or jacket. I love the name of the manufacturer. Saddly, a Google search only brings up Ebay listings for old uniforms.
Those ^ are Canadian Fatigue trousers secured via a trade while going through Canadian Jump School. Worn throughout college with boy's size 20 Polo oxford buttondowns. That was one advantage to being short and skinny.

The Army loved permanent creasing. Tennessee Overall Co? Gone. Long gone.

I am so bloody proud of those wings. It took a lot of Labatt's Blue and Export A's to get them.