IN MY SHOES: A Uniform Is More Than Just Material
Former New York Magazine writer Lily Burana – more recently author of "Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Tour Across America" – describes her reaction when she saw the new Battle Dress Uniform (B.D.U.) issued to her husband, an Army intelligence officer:
Every girl who’s had her head turned by a uniform has her favorite, and for me there is nothing quite like the command of camouflage. A fitted, heavily starched long jacket and bloused trousers in a dark green, black and brown woodland pattern over polished black boots, the Battle Dress Uniform, to me, is the American soldier.
But the B.D.U. is being phased out. Soldiers have been ordered to purchase two sets of the newer Army Combat Uniforms by next May, and soon, like the brown leather boots of the early cold war, the Vietnam-era pickle suit and the chocolate chip Desert Storm camo, the B.D.U. will be history. And I will miss it. …
All the B.D.U. thrill is gone: there will be no more starch-stiff sleeves, no more whiffs of bootblack. Instead, it’s the rrrrrrrrrip of Velcro, wash-and-wear convenience, and the gentle tread of flexible desert boot soles on the front step.
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