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Civillians Wearing Kit

Originally posted by 2332Piper:
[qb] What cadets making such a big deal out of this? Seeing as I seem to be the only cadet who posted here in this thread, and I happend to not complain about people wearing old combats, I don‘t get the above mentioned comment. [/qb]
CI Philpster and Daniel are both cadets.
 
I wear OD combat pants when i go camping or bumming around my back yard cooking steak.
Been camping in the winter a few times and used my parka and windpants.
I use my wetweather or mark 3 boots when im hiking or driving my street bike.
I don‘t see anything evil about that.

People buy army junk at the store because its a fashion statement. Just like getting pierced and JUST like getting a tatto.

What i dont understand is why the Canadian forces more often than not destroy unwanted equipment instead of selling it to army surplus stores which give us more money.

If hippies wearing cadpat means we get new flak vests or jeeps more power to them i say.
 
Ya there‘s lots of hippies but lets not forget all us Cadets who wear it on exs and people like me who use it to go paint balling because showing up in the forest with a red t shirt is just dumb. But I think the guys who write dumb stuff like "drop acid not bombs" should have their combats taken back with no refund it‘s a disgrace to the uniform and the forces the only writing that should be on there should be your name.
 
There‘s a mentally retarded kid at my school who will wear a set of full combats everynow and then... I‘m not touching that one with a ten foot pole!
 
Who would you rather want wearing combats.
A hippie?
Or a Cadet?
It is a YES or NO question.
 
It‘s not combats, I wear combat pants when hiking and etc... it‘s wearing a full uniform not entitled to that individual.

PS... I WAS a cadet... Thus the "Former WO2" in my sig. I am very ‘retired‘.
 
Surplus is surplus, but the thing that really bugs me is when skinhead groups decide its fun to wear NAZI paraphenelia (Fritz helmets with swastika, ss uniforms) one day, and bits of CF combats the next. It can indirectly associate the two in people‘s eyes, which is most definitely a bad thing.
 
Originally posted by Kirkpatrick:
[qb] Surplus is surplus, but the thing that really bugs me is when skinhead groups decide its fun to wear NAZI paraphenelia (Fritz helmets with swastika, ss uniforms) one day, and bits of CF combats the next. It can indirectly associate the two in people‘s eyes, which is most definitely a bad thing. [/qb]
I agree, I have seen that aswell. though rare, it is offensive.
 
Groups like that get off on being found offensive.

Ignore them and you take away a big part of what they are trying to get noticed. Their Image.
I‘d say 75% of the time someone says, does or wears something offensive its exactly because they want to be noticed and get attention.
 
I don‘t have a problem with people wearing combat clothing, I‘m in Northern Ontario right now and it seems that it‘s what all the hicks up here wear, and you can‘t blame them. Combats are very durable clothes and they‘re relatively inexpensive. What I do have a problem with are people that wear a mostly complete uniform (pants and tunic),medals, or try to look a bit like a soldier (combat boots, pants and a green or black T-shirt, boonie cap). Other then that the only dumb looking people are the ones who wear CF issue combat shirts. (jackets and parkas are fine in my books.) I personally have a small collection of combat pants from various countries but only the pants. If I feel the urge to stand out a little I put on my Dutch combat pants but I always make sure that the rest of my clothes are clearly civilan and tasteful. I find combat pants very comfortable and practical so I wear them all the time however the majority of the pants that I wear are solid colours (ie most are black but I do have tan, green, and even blue EMS type without the dumb reflectors). I even have a pair of those CADPAT pants from Frontenac that I got at a good price although I seldom wear them since they act as a kind of "girl-repellant" I‘ve discovered, plus they seem a little more out of place than the colour-by-number pants which have appearently made their way into mainstream fashion somehow. The interesting thing is that if I do wear the CADPAT pants (which is rare enough) people have asked what country that pattern is from and I inform them that it‘s Canada‘s new pattern and it‘s one of the most advanced in NATO and people are invariably pleasently surprised and proud by the fact that despite the current financial situation, the Canadian military is excelling in some areas.

Anyway, the pants I normally wear, although they are combat pants, or SWAT pants or EMS pants, most people think they‘re from the GAP so it‘s a moot point.
 
My dad was in the Militia in Saskatchewan in 1957 or so. One of his buddies always had to go out into the fields on parade night to see if his dad was wearing his Battle Dress pants while riding the tractor around. Good wool pants were expensive in them thar days. :D

Some things never change....
 
"Who would you rather want wearing combats.
A hippie?
Or a Cadet?
It is a YES or NO question."

How about a third option of "who gives a ****"?
Neither are military. People can wear what they want, for christ‘s sake. If someone is impersonating a member of the CF, then that‘s a real and true big deal, but otherwise, don‘t we all have better things to do than argue about this?
 
I agree , " Who gives a ****! If I was a civilian , and could buy a load bearing vest , to use for fishing or hunting , I would. And if this civilian could get his hands on some Gortex Kit , all the power to him. Alot of outdoors men , like our boonie hat.I seen a hunter with the newest load bearing vest , he bought it surplus. So be it. These people are not " para-miltary " , or "Neo-Nazi", they like gear that works.
 
At the end of the day, if it makes him happy, what they ****. He is not hurting anyone.

Cheers,

Wes
 
Further to my my last , I seen CADPAT Kit in surplus stores , long before I got mine. Likewise I have seen a variety of medals , for sale in surplus , and coin stores. Cyprus, Golan , SSM, to name a few.The medals are for the serious collector, not the "want to be a hero".
 
I also know a lot of camera guys who love army surplus... great clothes for the field, lots of big pockets to fill up, and M16 type mags are the same size as Sony NP-1 camera batteries.
 
I have a question. It‘s illegal to impersonate a soldier as well as "wear insignia"?

Does that mean that theoretically someone whos wearing a combat shirt with sgt‘s ranks on them or a medal say, is actually commiting a crime?
 
Originally posted by Kirkpatrick:
[qb] Surplus is surplus, but the thing that really bugs me is when skinhead groups decide its fun to wear NAZI paraphenelia (Fritz helmets with swastika, ss uniforms) one day, and bits of CF combats the next. It can indirectly associate the two in people‘s eyes, which is most definitely a bad thing. [/qb]
This post suprises me, what suprises me even more is the next post that says that they have seen this too.

You must be talking about children who are just attention getters. Because your typical Neo Nazi Skinhead is usually extremely well educated on the rhetoric and history of the Nazi Party. They take pride in their dress and their belief.
They wear very specific stuff because it has meaning in the skinhead subculture, but rarely does it involve wearing actual Nazi clothing. Sometimes the boots, but not much else.
Personaly I‘ve yet to see one Nazi skinhead wearing a "uniform". That would be pretty outrageous, and for the most part Nazi skinheads consider themselves more like the Fourth Reich, and not directly connected to Nazi Germany 1943.
The Nazi‘s lost power, which is generally a sore spot for people who think they shouldn‘t have, and furthermore they generally have theories on why/how a "Fourth Reich" could rise to power with "proper leadership".
Most Nazi Skinheads will tell you that if it wasn‘t for Hitler being a such maniac, the Nazi Party would still be in power, and control all of Europe.

For someone to wear a Swastika, and dress like a Nazi doesn‘t really have anything to do with the ACTUAL Nazi skinhead movement. That the same induvidual would wear CF combats the next day only proves that they are just some random trouble maker who is looking for a confrontation.

I know because I was involved with a skinhead movement when I was younger.
Before anyone freaks out, it was the S.H.A.R.P. movement.
Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice, is what that stands for.
Basically the whole point is to have people who enjoy the Ska/Punk scene who are willing to stand up to racist Nazi punk Aholes when they show up at shows, or at parties.

I‘ve had run ins with Nazi punks in the past and I can tell you first hand that Swastikas don‘t really play that big of a part in that subculture. You‘re more likely to see a bomber jacket covered in patches, some Nazi Germany insignia, some more modern but equally symbolic.
They will wear white boot laces (signifies white power), and will generally be easy to spot, since they are looking for trouble 10 times out of 10.

My question is, if you saw a person wearing a Swastika and worse, SS uniforms, what did you do about it?

Seriously, some things are just way over the top and need to have attention called to them. If people are getting so wound up about "grungers" and "rockers" wearing OD combat‘s as part of their "fashion statement", then I would hope that seeing people running around dressed like Nazi‘s would push them over the edge.
Although I should point out that "rockers" are more prone to wearing tight jeans and leather jackets than combats, maybe what was meant was "punk rockers".

Anyway, getting wound up about about people wearing surplus combats is totaly a waste of time. There is no disrespect intended for the most part, and even if you told someone who was wearing some old surplus combats that you felt offended by it, they would probably laugh at you and blow you off as some fanatical military nerd.
I wear OD combat pants when I‘m bumming around, walking down to the pool, the coffee shop, or the video store all the time. You can‘t argue with $5 pants.
I walk by the Moss park armoury on my way to the pool, I would hope that if anyone felt offended they would be pacified by my explaination that I would rather have my $5 dollar pants stolen in the Moss park rec center, than my $75 dollar jeans.

I totally agree about medals and rank though. That‘s something that‘s worth getting a little steamed about. Collecting the stuff is fine, but wearing it around IS disrespectful.
Though I have to say, you people who are seeing this stuff must live in some pretty colourful places. I never see anyone wearing this stuff.
 
Kit is great for cameras. I picked up an "82" butt pack for my camera. Its roomy, has pockets for batteries, cards, and anything else I might need, and its reasonably water resistant. Best of all, it was $17, much cheaper than the $60 I‘ve seen for similar looking traditional camera bags.

A friend of mine, ex-militia turned professional photograhper, uses his old webbing for his camera gear.
 
Originally posted by willy:
[qb] "Who would you rather want wearing combats.
A hippie?
Or a Cadet?
It is a YES or NO question."

How about a third option of "who gives a ****"?
Neither are military. People can wear what they want, for christ‘s sake. [/qb]
Good answer. So now LETS keep it that way.
So we all can stop singling out Cadets now.
 
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