Looking at various troop images from Iraq & Afghanistan, it looks to me like, in general, US combat troops wear gloves on patrol. However, looking at combat images from the Vietnam war, it seems that in general, combat troops didn’t wear gloves, even when patroling swampy areas and such. I realize there are always exceptions, but does anyone know when and what changes led to US combat troops routinely wearing gloves on patrol?
BTW, I would think that handling greasy, sharp, or dangerous machinery and weapons, and being in areas with potentially unsantiary conditions and or harmful parasites (e.g. leeches, mosquitos), gloves are a good idea.
My guess is that it started shortly after the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, but I joined in 2006 so all I can say for sure is that it was sometime before then.
I would guess Gulf War I. Just because all that metal gets damn hot. I’d also assume that everyone in the North African Campaigns in WWII did something similar.
I know as late as the mid-80s troops were not being trained to fight with gloves on, what was standard issue to the grunts at the time was the work-glove with leather shell and wool liners. Save perhaps when rappelling or handling hot artillery shell casings, they were not a practical thing to have on your hands all day in hot environments.
Looking at pics from Desert Storm I see US Army and Marine troops variously wearing gloves or not, but mostly not, while in battle rig in the field. I would venture that at some point after that, and based on their experiences, there was the adoption of the use of “tactical gloves”, indeed due to the need for safely “handling greasy, sharp, or dangerous machinery and weapons”.
I was a USAF tactical liaison officer to the US Army in the early 80s. I was atached to an infantry unit in a tropical jungle environment. All the grunts had gloves, which they wore most of the time. They were generic leather work gloves, black or very dark brown.
As a pilot, I had access to USAF flying gloves, which are a light lambskin front and an elastic nomex fabric back. They had vastly better dexterity than the Army issue work gloves. Giving a few pair of those to my Army counterparts was real good for interservice relations.
The videos of Iraq, etc., that I see nowadays shows everybody wearing what looks like USAF flying gloves; I guess the Army finally got the idea.
So for at least some Army units in some environments, gloves were standard issue (& actually used) in the early 1980s. From the later reports above, we see they weren’t universal even as late as the late 1990s.
For the US Army, wearing gloves is not just an option or practical choice, it is mandatory along with Ballistic Eye Protection. If you can find the memo which first made flame-resistant, tactical gloves a mandatory part of the Army’s Personal Protective Equipment, you will have your answer.
Personally, I can’t stand wearing gloves on patrol. But I have to.
I joined the Marine Corps in 2000, and got out in 2006. I reenlisted in the National Guard in 2009. Somewhere along all of that it started to change, iirc after 2003. I can’t quite put my fingers on it.
So somewhere between 2003 (when I was in the invasion gloves were uncommon), and when I first got out in 2006 (when they were more or less ubiquitous).