Vol. 01 No. 07
Picking up from last week’s Combat Threads, this is part 2 of “Camouflaged to Stand Out,” my paper I presented at the Sartorial Society’s seminar series. Last week, we left off with the US Marine Corps’ adoption of its MARPAT camouflage based on the Canadian CADPAT pattern. Today’s installment will follow the digital camouflage trend.
***
The pixelated camouflages were the new “it” military pattern. In the words of Cheryl Stewardson, a textile technologist at the Army research center in Natick, Massachusetts, “It was trendy.” The Army, conducting its own hunt for a new camouflage, pushed for a digital design like the Canadians and the Marines had. “If it’s good enough for the Marines, why shouldn’t the Army have that same cool new look?” Stewardson explained to The Daily in 2012. The result was the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) adopted by the Army in 2005. While the Canadians and Marines had opted for two patterns for different locales, the Army decided on a “universal” pattern that never lived up to expectations. As an army Specialist put it, “that universally failed in every environment.”
The failure of UCP underlined the trend consciousness of military uniforms. The US Army was not the only branch to jump on the digital trend; the Navy developed (mainly because they could not use the USMC pattern) its own desert pattern, woodland pattern, and even a blue pattern mockingly referred to as “blueberry” pattern, of marginal utility in any perceivable setting, especially on the ocean. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in 2013; they gave “great camouflage it gives is if you fall overboard.” Since 2002, the US Military has adopted ten different camouflage patterns.
By 2009, the proliferation and effectiveness of new camouflage patterns were beginning to be questioned by lawmakers, not least of all due to the high price tag. Between 2003 and 2010, the US Army alone spent $4 billion developing new uniforms. In 2009, due to overwhelmingly negative reviews of the UCP camouflage, Congress directed the Army to provide appropriate camouflage for soldiers deploying to Afghanistan in the FY 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act. In 2013 congress followed up with the National Defense Authorization Act, adding language that prohibited any branch of the military from adopting a new pattern without all branches adapting it. "We can't afford to have different camo patterns just for the argument that it's esprit de corps. That's what dress uniforms are for," said then-Representative William Enyart.
Representative Enyart’s comment strikes at the core of how the uniform’s symbolic and physiologic importance had shifted from “dress uniforms” to camouflage combat uniforms. This can partially be attributed to two factors unique to the modern military. The camouflage uniform is worn by military personnel in “garrison;” in office jobs, recruiting offices, while traveling, etc. The camouflage uniform is not just worn in combat zones and resultantly took on more importance outside of the combat context. Second, in the post-Cold War world, the US military has been more involved in multinational operations, coalitions, and joint-training missions with other countries. This kind of close interaction with other militaries emphasizes the ability of the uniform to identify the wearer as a member of a specific unit and nation, becoming the primary way militaries visually communicate. We will see the significance of this as the next camouflage trend takes hold.
In response to Congress’ 2009 directive, the US Army turned to a commercially successful camouflage pattern that had competed in the prior selection trials. MultiCam, a pattern designed and owned by Crye Precision, was already used with US Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and was widely praised for its utility. The Army first introduced MultiCam for all soldiers deploying to Afghanistan while it ran a new set of trials to select a pattern. The Army named the stopgap pattern Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern. The name of the pattern referred to where the camouflage was to be used but also pushed away from the failure of UCP and the war in Iraq more generally, where it became a representative visual of some of the war’s bloodiest years. OEF-CP reflected a change in focus; away from Iraq and toward the “good war” in Afghanistan. When the Army was considering new patterns to replace UCP, they purposely avoided anything that remotely looked like it. According to an Acquisition Research Program sponsored report, “The digital patterns that were based on the U.S. Marine Corps patterns (MARPATs) were never seriously considered because Army senior leaders were concerned about ... the soldier/public perception of the Army choosing another “digital” pattern after the tepid response to the UCP adoption.”
Till next time,
CWM.
* * *