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Anyone wear mil surplus clothing? M65 field jackets, etc?

I've modified my LBE (load bearing equipment, pistol belt and suspenders) into a tool belt with a leather nail and tool pouch from Harbor Freight and a nylon holster for a cordless drill or impact driver.

My insulated combat boots still get used. My jungle boots have a steel shank from the Vietnam War designed to defeat pungi spikes in deadfall booby traps. This feature is useful on jobsites where we've demolished an old deck and there are a lot of rusty nails about.

The gortex jacket is superior to the traditional field jacket in that it is water resistant and has a useful hood.
 
I still have my woodland camo m 65 hanging in the closet. I have never removed the sewn on rank insigna from the shoulders, therefore have not worn it in years.

I saw another middle aged man wearing one at a gun show a couple of years ago, He still had his branch, name and enlisted cheverons on his. I thought it inappropriate with civilian clothing.
 
I've got an old USAF one that was given to me by an ex-colleague. It was his personal one and was obsolete then, as the name tag had a blue rather than a green background. He died not long afterwards and I decided not to remove the patches as a kind of tribute to him. I have worn it, but as ex-RAF, I had the terrorist risk drummed into me, and after the despicable murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, have it hanging up in my wardrobe.

I am a fan of Alpha Industries clothing, I've one of their black flying jackets, and one of their cold weather parka. I take the view that when it's 'that cold', function is more important than looks!
 
I still have my woodland camo m 65 hanging in the closet. I have never removed the sewn on rank insigna from the shoulders, therefore have not worn it in years.

I saw another middle aged man wearing one at a gun show a couple of years ago, He still had his branch, name and enlisted cheverons on his. I thought it inappropriate with civilian clothing.

The only small gripe with this is that I've never really approved of getting duded up in camo to go to a gun show. You see those types sometimes and I'm not sure what it is about a gun show held on fair grounds or a defunct J.C. Penny building that encourages a certain type of person to dress like that, unless their intention is to immediately head to the woods afterwards to harvest game. And most times, I doubt that is happening.

I kind of feel the same way about people who dress up to go to the range. I remember once going to the POW range at Fort Riley and a fellow shooter was decked out in black urban camo, complete with pants legs tucked into jungle boots...and with a knife tucked into one of his boots!

To this day, I'm not sure what sort of trouble he was expecting to encounter at the range.

My field jacket still has my name tag and branch of service on it, along with a 2nd Infantry Division patch (The Indian Head) on it. It's my name, I did indeed serve, and I was a year in that division. I don't wear it much anymore, but I see no pressing need to erase those items from it. Rank on the collars was of the removable pin-on type, and I have removed those.
 
I don't recall the exact regs but if you take off the "US Army" tape and perhaps the US military specific US flag then I don't think just name, unit, and rank on a personal bit of (now outdated) uniform is incorrect and certainly is not illegal. I stripped the patches off all my old uniforms in case I wanted to wear them camping or whatnot (the old camo pattern BDUs) and wouldn't consider wearing the digital ACUs if not on duty (they fact that they are a poorly made *** notwithstanding :p as those are the current uniform, though I do see them show up on various hobos, bums and workmen. Can't wait till we transition to a new camo pattern, hopefully with 100% less velcro!

But if you do get a M65 jacket you gotta run bike chain through it like Arnie from the Terminator :p
 
I still have a few uniforms from my time in service, but these seem to "vanish" into the children's closets- BDU and field jackets go first. Luckily my boots, which took some time to be mine, have stayed with me. I just like to enjoy shorts, never cold enough out here. But, if you take an old BDU and cut them to shorts, I have the best of all worlds. My issue was woodland camo, not the fancy camo available today.
 
I wouldn't say its surplus since its on my clothing record, a lot of it is excess though.

I got issued an M65 Field jacket in universal camo pattern, nice and warm and waterproof, I wore it for about 2 months at my first duty station until I could get to CIF. They stopped issuing them couple years now and now just issue the 7 layer GEN III clothing system, or Gortex jacket.


Title 10 USC section 771 and 772 spell out who can wear uniforms and distinctive uniform accessories. I think ACU is a tacky pattern to wear with civilian cloths and my thoughts are ACU was selected as a recruitment tool for the millennium generation.
 
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I have one of these tops & I can attest to how warm it is.

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This is the jacket that I bought. I just really like to pattern & it works wonderfully in the woods where I live.

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Long time ago I wore a green army jacket, especially when working outside or going for a hike. I had to search online to understand that it was probably a M65 of Vietnam vintage. With all the pockets and long length it was my favorite jacket at the time.
 

Legion

Staff member
I still have a few uniforms from my time in service, but these seem to "vanish" into the children's closets- BDU and field jackets go first. Luckily my boots, which took some time to be mine, have stayed with me. I just like to enjoy shorts, never cold enough out here. But, if you take an old BDU and cut them to shorts, I have the best of all worlds. My issue was woodland camo, not the fancy camo available today.

Haha. I swiped my fathers combat jacket, battle dress jacket, boots, flying suit... anything that I could get my hands on when I was a kid. Grew out of it all though, by my late teens.
 
Yeah, the polypro underwear is nice, and CHEAP! I bought some for the wife to stick in her car "get home" bag in the event she finds herself stranded someplace in the winter wearing nothing but typical southern womens winter wear (i.e. looks good, not much for dealing with actual winter weather). The problem with a lot of military stuff is that while it works, it is bulky. Surplus is cheap, but wow, new stuff at clothing sales, like the gortex jacket and the PT running suit, yowza!

Don't even get me started on the ACU digital pattern. Even when they were going around testing it we all thought it was a doofy color scheme. At least it's high visibility has reduced on-post accidents at road crossings :p They make us wear a reflective belt with the PT gear (which has BUILT-IN reflective tape) but not with the ACUs as they don't need visibility enhancement!
 
Haha. I swiped my fathers combat jacket, battle dress jacket, boots, flying suit... anything that I could get my hands on when I was a kid. Grew out of it all though, by my late teens.

Great! that means a combined seven years- hope I still have something left in my footlocker. :lol:
 
I had a M65 I wore all the time when I was in college (a long time ago!). This jacket is long gone but this thread has had me thinking of getting a new one. Who makes a good, new M65 that'll fit a middle-aged fat man?
 
I had a M65 I wore all the time when I was in college (a long time ago!). This jacket is long gone but this thread has had me thinking of getting a new one. Who makes a good, new M65 that'll fit a middle-aged fat man?

I saw some Quartermasters in my day that filled those out pretty well, so no worries there. Tons of them at various Army and Navy stores. Philly probably has them somewhere.
 
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