29 Nov Where’d That Uniform Originate from?
Keep in mind playing seek and hide with your two-year-old niece? You’d meet on the couch and talk about how the game was going to go down. And then, you’d begin to count and she’d run to hide. She understood you were after her, and she was going to tuck herself away somewhere, and quick.
But.
The really cute thing about it was when you went looking. Even when she was “hiding,” you could walk into a room and see her outline against the window where she was standing behind the curtain. You may have found the little bump that was her underneath the covers on the bed, even though she was being sooooo sneaky.
Cute pigtails, wide grin, that catching chuckle. The way her laughing eyes looked back at you as she went to base. Mostly adorable, whether she wasn’t much for competition.
Play a game with her ten years after, though, and times will have transformed. She’ll know what’s going on, and she’ll likely give you a run for your money … utilizing using secret spots in the house you never even knew existed. And you seriously might walk right past her in her hiding spot, repeatedly again, and not know it.
While secure games of hide and seek on a sunny Sunday afternoon are quite idyllic, there’s nothing about the hide-and-seek of military combat that’s sweet or funny or peaceful. This little comparison is somewhat similar to the story of the development of military camouflage. In the past, armies wore uniforms that didn’t hide them whatsoever. Much like your niece’s feet extending from under the bed and making her spot clear, the uniforms provided an army completely obvious, bold colors loudly announcing their presence.
This was greatly a product of how armies collaborated to battle, back in the day. Historically, opposing armies often assembled close, marching to face each other on the front lines. Today, however, warfare often takes place from more of a distance, and military uniforms are an attempt to render individuals inconspicuous, like playing with your older nephews and nieces, or entering into an all-adult seek and hide game in a huge park at night.
When the United States got serious about camouflage, they employed individuals that they called camofleurs, people whose job emphasized coming up with a pattern that would help combine the uniform into the surrounding background. Over time, the uniforms have become more advanced, designed for specific army operations and the locations where they occur (such as developing a uniform to blend into the sandy terrain and colors of the Middle East, for example). Today they employ digital camouflage patterns as well.
And uniforms aren’t the only things that are camouflaged these days. Ships, buildings, military combat vehicles … every one of these are disguised at several times, too. As technology has evolved, military strategies have become more highly developed and researched, and this incorporates camouflage for uniform clothing and other things at the same time.
It’s an intriguing story and if you’d like to read more and recall through some fascinating photos of the journey, take a look at these articles.
For a brief “picture essay” of various uniforms and helmets, this is a nice stop. http://www.foxnews.com/tech/slideshow/2015/11/10/history-camouflage-in-pictures.html#/slide/british-army-khaki.
For more pictures, including one of the ghillie suit, check out this link. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/a-brief-history-of-military-camouflage/240291/#slide5.
For a discussion about the development of the camouflage department of the military, camouflage patterns going mainstream and being worn by the general public, and the disguising of other things (buildings, equipment, etc.), this is a nice read by Time magazine. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1906083,00.html
For a timeline of camouflage development beginning in the late 1800s, go here. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/01/history-camouflage-military-united-states/13485491/.
When solid color khaki was used) all the way to the technology and sophistication put in to today’s uniforms, this article gives a history from back in the day (. http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/10/21/evolution-us-military-camouflage-from-basic-green-and-khaki-to-digital-patterns-and-beyond.html.
Figuring out the background of something that has become commonplace to us is helpful and provides a framework for where we stand in history.
The military uniform is a sign of sacrifice and devotion to country, and we are proud to transport the service men and women of our country. For whichever military transportation need that might come up, we are only a call away!