Shit. An Army field jacket is harder to find than a gay Nascar fan. Shoot an azimuth to any Army-Navy store and the classic M65 comes up MIA every time. Surplus stores were the AO for this sort of kit but now all they sell are tube socks, tee shirts and Danish wet weather gear.Keyed the Prick 77 handset and an old army buddy gave me the grid coordinates of Goldberg Army-Navy in Philadelphia. Broke out the 1 over 50,000 and, map in the lap, drove the POV down. Suspense on the sitrep is DTG: 1014:10OCT11 Zulu. No ghosting here.
I thought I saw you buying that at Ralph Lauren...
ReplyDeleteThe basement at I. Goldberg is a treasure house of real military surplus.
ReplyDeleteIf you are coming down....let me know.
I thought I helped you get rid of that jacket in 1981??? ME
ReplyDeletePity you didn't hook up with 3Cdo CAR on some sort of exchange and spend more time in the Great White North, coulda got some wings with the white leaf; they look really hipper. Saw some of Ralph's stuff this season...I had to look twice to confirm it wasn't a rip off of a P.P.C.L.I. badge.
ReplyDelete("I thought I helped you get rid of that jacket in 1981???" - ME)
ReplyDeleteHilarious, ME! And kudos to you if you could.
I didn't understand the second paragraph of this post at all. But maybe that was the point...
-DB
randall- I can't afford RL.
ReplyDeleteMain Line- Been there and back but going again soon. Will advise. That basement is pure gold.
ME- You got rid of a lot of my things if I recollect. I gave most of it to Patterson.
Oyster Guy- I'm impressed. How many jumps did it take to the get the white leaf? Three more?
I was in some Rig Rooms at RL Polo over the Summer. There was tons of Canadian military surplus. I wonder why?
Went thru Canadian para school with a bunch of guys from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Were they called Pickleys?
" I gave most of it to Patterson."
ReplyDeleteRoger that.
No need be be impressed, I never did any of that stuff except jump a few times. Before the cold war ended I was on my way be being what David Halberstam referred to as a "defense intellectual" so I am hip to your more biographical posts. You got your red leaf "cherry" wings when you passed jump school and the white leaf when you serve with the then Canadian Airborne Regiment or now the Para Coy of the PPCLI or RCR. The PPCLI have been known as "picklies" as an acronym but are usually and most properly referred to as "Patricia's"
ReplyDeleteThe "crests" on Ralph's rugby shirts are really bizarre to me. Why would any American want to wear something with a crown on it, faux or otherwise?
Oyster- I know that after CA para school, the wings w/ red maple leaf were getting hard to find. Have you seen Joe Bruin's Kit Shop. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteAmericans love phony stuff. I would've thought any self respecting Canadian would know that.
Hah! I missed this little entry!
ReplyDeleteI was going to add a 2nd comment to your Army-Navy Surplus post above, that my all-time, no-shit favorite pair of pants ever in my sorry life were a pair of OD Israeli fatigue pants I bought while visiting a girlfriend in Berkley. Why those hippies needed a honest to goodness surplus store right on Telegraph Avenue was lost on me until I was reminded of Patti Hearst. But those fatigues were so soft (a fine hand, not the rough ripstop), flatteringly cut with just the right taper at the ankle, and I never saw them coming and going. And the large panel of care instructions and, presumably, other military specifications, were all in Hebrew.
If I had them right now I'd throw them on with a white polo ...