Poll: Is it time to stop the cover up?

SPC David S. — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:08:59 -0400

With clothing allowances for 360,000 people in the Air Force with one blues and one ABU costing $13.90 each totals $5 million a year!

Taxpayers are being charged $5 million a year so that the Air Force can wear hats. Hats serve little to no purpose other than being officer/enlisted identifier. While there is much tradition with our uniforms is it time for change. I mention air force as they are not allowed to be worn on flight lines where a good bit of work is done.

Consider the cost of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard how much money we're talking about?

Don't we have better things to spend $25 Million a year on?

What do you think?

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2014 5:06 PM

PO1 Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 17:06:26 -0400

As many sets of uniforms that I trashed onboard ship - the Navy dang well better be paying to replace them!

Response by MSG Wade Huffman made Oct 2 at 2014 6:06 PM

MSG Wade Huffman — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:06:56 -0400

Prior to the entire Army Black Beret debacle, I probably would have been neutral to the question, but having been through a transition of replacing a fully functional piece of headgear with a felt (wool) sauna on the top of my head, I will have to vote in favor of keeping the covers.
The cap (now patrol cap) does have function and should be retained.

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2014 6:56 PM

CW5 Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:56:25 -0400

Hats are part of military tradition and they do serve a purpose: protecting our heads from the sun and other elements. As a guy who had skin cancer on the top of my head, I am now seldom seen without a hat.

Response by MSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2014 7:19 PM

MSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 19:19:56 -0400

The cover is part of the uniform and serves a purpose. Matter of fact, I think they should adapt the bonnie hat for the working uniforms ACU, ABU etc, instead of the patrol cap for sun protection. As CW5 Private RallyPoint Member alluded to, it may help prevent skin cancer. Just my .02!

Response by SFC Dr. Joseph Finck, BS, MA, DSS made Oct 2 at 2014 7:50 PM

SFC Dr. Joseph Finck, BS, MA, DSS — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 19:50:14 -0400

Functional and sporty. My head loves hats.

Response by SGT Richard H. made Oct 2 at 2014 11:00 PM

SGT Richard H. — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 23:00:05 -0400

Compared to a normal household budget, the government scrapping hats to save $25 million would be like you or I sanding the Lincoln off of a penny to help control our household spending. There are just far more meaningful ways that our government could cut the budget.

Response by SSG Pete Fleming made Oct 2 at 2014 11:19 PM

SSG Pete Fleming — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 23:19:47 -0400

Hats serve a wider purpose than tradition. They protect from the sun, keep your head warm, hide the fact that someone needs a haircut, and just looks professional. Think of the state trooper, the first thing he/she does is put on their hat before approaching the vehicle. That looks much better than the county deputy with his hair blowing in the breeze.

I agree the military could and should cut cost. But pick something truly useless like lanyards for the pistol or any of these 30 things...

#1 The U.S. government is spending $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

#2 The Obama administration plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars helping students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.

#3 If you can believe it, the U.S. government has spent $175,587 “to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior”.

#4 The U.S. government spent $200,000 on “a tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.

#5 The federal government has shelled out $3 million to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research on video games such as World of Warcraft. Wouldn’t we all love to have a “research job” like that?

#6 The Department of Health and Human Services plans to spend $500 million on a program that will, among other things, seek to solve the problem of 5-year-old children that “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom.

#7 Fannie Mae is about to ask the federal government for another $4.6 billion bailout, and it will almost certainly get it.

#8 The federal government once spent 30 million dollars on a program that was designed to help Pakistani farmers produce more mangos.

#9 The U.S. Department of Agriculture once gave researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.

#10 According to USA Today, 13 different government agencies “fund 209 different science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs — and 173 of those programs overlap with at least one other program.”

#11 A total of $615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.

#12 China lends us more money than any other foreign nation, but that didn’t stop our government from spending 17.8 million dollars on social and environmental programs for China.

#13 The U.S. government once spent 2.6 million dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.

#14 One professor at Stanford University was given $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love.

#15 The U.S. Postal Service spent $13,500 on a single dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

#16 The National Science Foundation once spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians “gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions”.

#17 A total of $1.8 million was spent on a “museum of neon signs” in Las Vegas, Nevada.

#18 The federal government spends 25 billion dollars a year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant.

#19 U.S. farmers are given a total of $2 billion each year for not farming their land.

#20 The U.S. government handed one Tennessee library $5,000 for the purpose of hosting a series of video game parties.

#21 A few years ago the government spent $123,050 on a Mother’s Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia. It turns out that Grafton only has a population of a little more than 5,000 people.

#22 One professor at Dartmouth University was given $137,530 to create a “recession-themed” video game entitled “Layoff”.

#23 According to the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. military spent “$998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida”.

#24 The U.S. Department of Agriculture once shelled out $30,000 to a group of farmers to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight “haycations”.

#25 The National Institutes of Health paid researchers $400,000 to find out why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.

#26 The National Institutes of Health also once spent $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.

#27 The National Institutes of Health loves to spend our tax money on really bizarre things. The NIH once spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.

#28 According to the Washington Post, 1,271 different government organizations work on government programs related to counterterrorism and homeland security.

#29 The U.S. government spent $100,000 on a “Celebrity Chef Fruit Promotion Road Show in Indonesia”.

#30 The feds once gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 “to paint a Chinook salmon” on the side of a Boeing 737.