Last night at the Williamsburg Inn, where I paid you don’t want to know how much for an empty dining room with a harp and a good steak in it, one of the vanishingly few other diners was a guy in a mysterious uniform. I’m not sure how old he was - he didn’t look particularly old, but he wasn’t super-young either. 20’s to 30’s, maybe. The uniform was dark green, and I didn’t see much insignia on it except for those ribbon-stick-things. He had quite a few of those - several rows. The interesting thing was that he was wearing gold spurs on his dress shoes.
So what was he? We were thinking maybe some kind of service academy thing, except he had all those ribbon things. I didn’t get a really good look at it - just from across the dining room.
Interesting. So, when do Army guys wear that dark green uniform? I thought the super-fancy mess dress for the Army was the dark blue jacket and lighter blue pants? I’ve never seen the dark greens - guy looked extremely sharp. (It’s a jacket and tie restaurant, and I think they had some kind of special occasion - extra flowers on their table.)
I’m not sure if it was an Army uniform if you didn’t see anything other than ribbons. They are usually quite busy. The Army Class A uniform consists of dark green pants and dark green jacket, light green shirt and black necktie. The officers uniform has a black stripe down the pants and black braid just up from the sleeve. Officers will have shiny rank on their epulets. Enlisted will have gold stripes on the sleeve. Enlisted will have a diagonal stripe near the end of the sleeve for every three years of service. Officer and enlisted will have a gold horizontal stripe on the other sleeve for every 6 months in a combat zone. The Class A uniform has a colorful unit patch on the left shoulder showing the current unit assignment and on the right shoulder showing the unit he was in combat with.
In addition to the ribbons there would probably be silver badges above and below the ribbons (Airborne, Air Assault, Combat Infantry Badge) and also marksmanship badges (enlisted only). On the right side of the chest would be unit awards, a regimental affliation crest, any foreign awards and a name tag. On the lapels there would be gold insignia which say U.S. and also the symbol of the branch of the soldier (Armor, Infantry etc). The style is different between officer and enlisted. The beret is also worn with the Class A uniform.
If all you saw was some ribbons then it wasn’t a US army uniform. Like I said it is a pretty busy uniform after you have been in long enough to get a few rows of ribbons.
To answer your other question. The Class A uniform is worn for occasions that would require a suit on the civilian side. The Dress Blue uniform is usually for blacktie affairs. There is some overlap since either can be worn with both a normal black necktie or a bowtie. The Army is proposing to get rid of the Class A uniform.
Here is an example of a Class A uniform (enlisted, the guy in the picture is a Staff Sergeant E-6).
And to clarify, both Cavalry and Armor award spurs. I know because I earned my spurs with an Armor unit not Cav.
Hmm. Like I said, he was a ways off in a dim room, but I think I would have noticed a bunch of gold stuff. Notably, I saw a dark patch on his sleeve but didn’t see any “Army stuff” in gold there. I didn’t get a really good look at his chest except to note the ribbons. Also, the green looked more like a “forest green” maybe than what I’d first think of as “Army green”,but everything was candlelight.
The Forest Service and the Border Patrol wear dark green uniforms. They also have mounted patrols, so an equestrian ceremony would not be improbable.
It’s been years since I saw a forest ranger wear a necktie, but the uniform used to have a suit-and-tie version. I don’t think I have ever seen a Border Patrol officer in a tie, but then again, I only see them when they are on duty.
