This should be a rant, but...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

After seeing all the predictions about the likely effect of the Armenian Genocide resolution in the House coming true today I just don’t have the energy.

More typical pork barrel politics.

An Oregon Congressman uses his influence to for the DoD to pay a local company $2 million for polyester t-shirts. According to the article, because he remembers cotton ones melting right off the backs of troops in Vietnam.

Now the Marines won’t issue them, because, polyester is a plastic and it melts in intense heat, it’s a health hazard where cotton wouldn’t be.

My time of active service was 1989-1994. And even back then it was Navy policy that no one aboard ship was allowed to wear polyester uniforms, because of the need to be available for firefighting duty - and the hazard of having the uniform melt to the firefighter.

I have to wonder whether this Congressmen ever actually TALKED to the Marines he was making pay for these t-shirts.

Of course, while not as useless, Congress often forces the military to buy things it doesn’t want: several hundred A-10; the last refurb of the USS JFK; the “Dead Admiral” class of destroyers; just to name a few off the top of my head. So, I can’t say I’m surprised. Just saddened.

2

This is the part that gets me:

How exactly does cotton “melt” ??? The only thing I can figure is that he’s referring to exposure to some sort of chemical, but I would think the Marines could problem-solve that one on their own, without help from an Oregon congressman. Seriously, he’d look a lot less suspicious if he just said he was trying to funnel $$$ into his own district (assuming, that is, that the shirts are actually made in Oregon…)

Ah well, if nothing else a few Marines in training are sporting some new hi-tech undershirts.

3

I was thinking it might also refer to dye bleeding, but that’s a bit of a stretch.