PHSChat Ideas Forum

We look antiquated in the old BDU which were first adopted by the Army in early 1980's. I was in first grade. The digital ACUs are not that expensive. The PHS could establish a wear out date for the old BDU but the problem with that is that we wear them so infrequently that two sets would probably last an entire career.

My proposed alternative to a digital pattern would be to adopt the uniforms used by DMAT teams. Basically it would be an all blue or all khaki version of our BDUs. They look somewhere between an EMT and military, which in my opinion is entirely appropriate for PHS officers on deployment.

I've been told that the navy BDUs won't work because of the emblems on the pocket. But couldn't we put a patch over the emblem? We could put the current PHS patch or like it was mentioned in another post have a patch for your category like pharmacy, nursing, etc.

PHS will never adopt the digitized Navy BDU since it has a small embedded Navy logo every 64 square inches or so. All of the other services' BDU type uniforms have these except the Coast Guard and NOAA (who use the Coast Guard's ODU).

We should go to the USCG version as then we would stand out from the USN and the three non-DoD services would look similar. We are medical and should not be in a combat zone where camo is required to hide from enemy contact. We want the people to be able to find us so we can help.

KLAS

Our goal is not standout from the USN, but on the contraire..to adopt their uniforms. Read policy in regards what service we draw our uniforms from.

Interesting comment about the cammies, youre prior service and should know that both Army, Navy and AF have had stronger global health outreach than we could ever dream and have always used cammouflaged uniforms...were not hiding from enemies, but its the uniform for tactical and even humanitarian responses. Also, by adopting the coverall USCG, were creating more confusion and not uniformity...we (PHS,NOAA,CG)will not look the same b/c it is only 1 uniform! what about the 99% rest of the them that are USN? Remember that its worked for 300 yrs.