The U.S. Marine Corps is temporarily loosening uniform standards to deal with a camouflage shortage due to supply chain issues.
Commandant General Eric Smith made the announcement in an Instagram video, saying service members will be able to substitute desert-colored uniforms for the usual woodland patterned ones, which are currently scarce thanks to a manufacturing shortage.
Smith said he recently returned from the Indo-Pacific region, where service members told him, “I can’t get cammies,” a nickname for the camouflage combat utility uniform.
“That problem is going to stay with us until the fall of 2024 when the manufacturer can fill the backlog that has been created after COVID. Until that time, local commanders, battalions and squadrons are authorized to use FROG [flame-resistant organizational gear] gear or desert cammies to mitigate,” Smith said.
“What we cannot have is a situation where a Marine is wearing unserviceable cammies, because that looks bad for the Corps, and we can’t have a situation where that Marine is being given a hard time about those unserviceable cammies. We’re going to get this fixed, Marines, but it’s going to take a little patience,” Smith added.
The relaxing of uniform standards does not mean that Marines can decide on their own to wear a different uniform, Major John Parry, a Marine spokesman, told the Marine Corps Times.
“This does not mean a Marine may make a decision unilaterally to wear a different uniform or civilian attire due to a serviceability issue with their designated uniform of the day,” Parry said.
“The guidance to battalion and squadron leaders and above is to make decisions that uphold the high standards of our service while maintaining mission readiness and reducing overall impact on daily operations,” the Marine spokesman said.
The “nonstandard” uniform items are a rare move for the branch, which prides itself on strict uniform standards, the Marine Corps Times said.
The woodland patterned “cammies” are typically the primary daily uniform for Marines. Recruits are supposed to receive three utility uniforms with the woodland pattern and two with the desert pattern.
Lately though, the Marine Corps has been giving recruits just two woodland sets and one desert set, the Marine spokesman said in August. Meanwhile, some recruits have been training in FROG gear, which is typically saved for deployments. Some Marines have reportedly resorted to patching up holes in their “cammies” with Marine-pattern bandanas or scraps of old uniforms.
Despite the pivot to desert-colored “cammies,” however, both appear to be in short supply on the My Navy Exchange website.
“Unfortunately, we are experiencing supply delays on this item,” a message on the website reads for both products. “The estimated back in stock date is Fall 2024. We greatly apologize for this inconvenience.”
The CEO of American Apparel, which makes most of the uniforms, said over the summer that inflation impacted the company’s ability to find workers to produce items.
“McDonald’s and a lot of the fast food guys are paying $2 and $3 more an hour than we could afford to pay,” CEO Chuck Lambert told the Marine Corps Times in August. “Where they could go up on the price of the hamburger, we can’t go up on the price of a uniform.”
Commandant Smith was nominated by President Biden in May and confirmed as the military branch’s leader just last month.