Genuine Issue Base Layer Clothing

Part I: Polypropylene

William G. McKinney

Former U.S. Army Lieutenant

President, Bradley’s Military Enterprises

When I joined the U.S. Army in 1982 as an enlisted soldier I wasn’t ready for the combat arms lifestyle.  I was raised in a comfortable middle class family.  I never was exposed to hunting, and I rarely went camping.  My parents idea of roughing it was to travel 8 hours to Maine, get a hotel room and to stroll along the beach.  I spent significantly more time at bistros and cafes than developing my survival skills.  Before I went on my first field exercise I thought it would be an enjoyable experience similar to camping.  Boy, was I in for a big surprise!  Going to the training facilities at Grafenwohr Germany in January was a far stretch from having a relaxing camping experience.

I quickly discovered that staying warm and dry was critical for field survival.  This may sound easy to accomplish, but it wasn’t an easy task.  Back in those days we were issued waffle thermal underwear, wool shirts, field jackets, and wool field pants.  The field jacket and pants also had removable mohair liners.  This type of clothing was heavy, bulky and uncomfortable.  Soldiers regularly overheated while road marching.  Later we froze in our sweat drenched clothing.  In those days we didn’t have products that were breathable or had moisture wicking properties such as Gore-Tex, polypropylene, grid fleece or silk weights.  Until these products were introduced we had no other option but to suffer or make the best of it.

From August 1982 to July 1986, military clothing changed very little.  To tell the truth our clothing and equipment was very similar to what was issued in World War II.  We still had steel pot helmets, C-Rations, standard web gear, wool clothing, and waffle style thermal underwear.  I was even issued olive drab fatigues although the BDU uniform was being introduced.  During my first tour of duty the big changes in the Army was the BDU uniform, MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), and the PGST Kevlar helmet.

When I depart the Army in 1986 I didn’t anticipate any big changes in the near future, but I was wrong.  When I joined the Army again in 1990 I was issued 2 new clothing items I had never used before.  These new clothing items were Gore-Tex jackets and polypropylene thermal tops and bottoms.  I will not go into details about the Gore-Tex Jacket in this article, but I will briefly say I loved it.  What I loved even more was the new polypropylene thermal underwear.  When I went to the field during the winter I always made sure that I brought my “Polypro,” but there were times when I would accidentally mix in an old waffle style thermal underwear set.  Believe me when I tell you there is a big difference in comfort and warmth between polypro and waffle thermal gear.  This is especially true in cold wet environments or when the temperature falls below freezing.  Eventually I threw away the old white cotton blend “waffles” so they couldn’t find their way into my rucksack.

The reasons why I love polypropylene:

• Polypropylene dries quickly.
• It wicks moisture away from the skin.
• It creates a dry barrier that increases warmth.
• It is an ideal product to use while road marching on bitter cold days.
• If you get sweaty polypro will quickly dry and help you stay warm.
• I like the soft feel of polypro on my skin.
• Cotton blend thermals absorbs moisture and it results in being cold.  This explains why the Army has a cold weather training motto that states: “Cotton Kills.”
• Wool dries slowly, it tends to make you itch and it is heavy when wet.  Polypro; in contrast, is light, comfortable and surprisingly warm.
• Polypropylene is significant less expensive than newer products such as grid fleece thermal underwear.

Polypropylene draw backs:

• Polypropylene is basically spun plastic.  Therefore, it is very heat sensitive.
• Polypro shrinks in the drier, especially in high heat.
• You should wash polypro items in cold water and hang dry.  This is the best bet to avoid shrinkage.
• If you use a drying machine place your settings on low heat for 30 minutes.
• If you briefly have contact with a hot source polypro can melt in the blink of an eye.  Once I melted a huge hole in my shirt by slightly touching a hot electrical generator.
• If you accidentally put a polypropylene item in the dryer on high heat, and allow it to remain in the colander after the machine stops, it will create small circles on the material.  These circles are caused by the colander branding or melting the material.  It will also shrink the item by one size or even more.
• Regardless of shrinking, polypro clings to the skin.  It isn’t as tight as Under Armor’s compression wear, but it feels snug against the skin.  Some customers don’t like this feel, but I think it is very comfortable.
• Over time polypro forms small peal balls.  Some say this is caused by exposure to heat.  This may be true, but I think rubbing and friction causes the fine polypro hairs to ball up.
• On occasion my customers will tell me polypropylene holds body odor.  I don’t feel polypro stinks, but I have heard customers make this claim.  It isn’t a common complaint.  Usually if there is any negative feedback about this product it is usually associated with shrinking.
• My recommendation about polypropylene products is twofold in nature.  First, buy polypro products one size larger than you would normally wear.  Second, don’t put your polypro items in the dryer machine.

Despite the long list of draw backs I have mentioned, I still suggest you try polypropylene.  In fact, I enthusiastically recommend using this product in extreme cold weather settings.  I use it regularly, and I wouldn’t think of going on a winter field exercise or camping without it.  Polypropylene products are nice to use when the weather falls below 50 degrees.  You will like it more when the temperature falls below freezing, and it is a life saver in subzero weather.  Since Bradley’s is located in Northern New York, and we regularly have subzero weather in the winter, polypropylene items are some of my best selling products.  If you live in a cold weather region, and you are a highly active person, I encourage you to buy a set of polypropylene thermal underwear.   I’m confident you will feel it is money well spent.

Bradley’s Selection of Polypropylene Items:

Thermal Underwear Shirts                           Thermal Underwear Trousers                    Glove Inserts

Glove Liners “Contact Gloves”                   Socks                                                                     Sock Liners

Neck Gators                                                       Hoods

A look at just some of our Polypro merchandise:

And to browse our FULL line of Polypropylene products, simply click HERE!

* Note: Polypro works well in conjunction with wool and polar fleece.  It wicks sweat to the outside of     the garment and then the outer layers will absorb this moisture.  I recommend using wool gloves with polypro glove liners and wool socks with polypro sock liners.

*Note: In my next article I will discuss an outstanding new extreme cold weather product called grid fleece.

Article taken from the June 11, 2010 edition of
Tonawanda News

While most of us would probably like to hold a fundraiser to fill our gas tanks, Jammies for GIs is fueling up for a road trip in August that will definitely pay it all forward.

Together with the Niagara Chapter of the American Legion Riders motorcycle club, the mission’s founder, Cheryl Lepsch hawked steamed clams and baked beans, raffle tickets and signed Sabres posters Thursday evening to customers at Old Man River in the City of Tonawanda, New York.

Jammies for GIs has for roughly four years collected clothing and personal care items for America’s wounded soldiers, many of whom are evacuated from America’s battlefields with only the tattered clothes on their backs.

But while some $100,000 worth of donated items currently sits in a warehouse, Thursday’s fundraiser was the first of several that will be needed to pay for shipping it all to soldiers in limbo at Andrews Air Force Base Aug. 20.

“When they get back if they got shot up they only have the clothes they got shot up in,” Sam Reeder, of the Legion Riders, told those in attendance.

This Sunday, his group is sponsoring a post-to-post motorcycle poker run beginning and ending at the Sanborn American Legion Post, at 6525 Ward Road. Registration at 11 a.m. costs $15 for riders and $10 for passengers. The events includes live music, food and a cash bar.

Dan Wilkins helped promote Thursday’s event at the waterfront restaurant, as LeeRon Zydeco & The Hot Tamales performed beginning at 6 p.m.

“They’re raising money to buy gas so I had the idea to sell beans,” Wilkins said.

That and the weekend ride will all raise funds for a massive road trip in August. Lepsch and the truckload of underwear, socks, coats, T-shirts and many other items will make the journey to Andrews Air Force Base while Reeder and his legion of riders travel as a huge escort for the truck.

“I actually saw Cheryl speak about four years ago when she was just starting out,” he said. “We were looking for a way to help the GIs and I remembered her story.”

Lepsch started Jammies for GIs after hearing from her son Jeremy while he was stationed overseas several years ago. She was told about the overcrowding in military hospitals in Germany and stateside that triage patients for extended periods of time before they reach their destination or are redeployed. She heard of and saw images of wounded soldiers awaiting treatment in German hospitals and wearing T-shirts while snow is visible in the background, or walking without coats to therapy session on open medical campuses.

She now speaks, raising awareness, money and provisions to help young men and women laying in bloody clothes for weeks because not even hospital gowns are in great supply as years of war yields increasing numbers of wounded.

“For every one who has been killed there are five or 10 others who’ve been injured,” she said. “You don’t hear about that in the media.”

“The public is really oblivious to what the needs are,” she said after explaining that two to five pallets of donated goods sent twice a year to Brooks Medical Center in Texas still isn’t enough. “They said, ‘Cheryl you could send stuff every day and we could hand it out as fast as you could send it’ … It’s sad when a soldier doesn’t even have a toothbrush after he’s wounded.”

On one hand, there’s the fact that shipping soldier’s personal items after an injury can be dangerous and isn’t much of a priority in a war zone. Then there’s the fact that the government issues only a short list of items to soldiers, and nowhere is it written that they will get extra garments just because they’re thousands of miles away from their foot lockers.

“(The need) is hugely underrated because the general public would assume that when a soldier is wounded all their needs are met,” she said. “They sometimes don’t even get a call home unless they’re in a hospital where there’s a phone right by their bed.”

More information on ways to donate money or goods can be found at the charity’s official website: www.jammiesforgis.org.

Taken from the June 3, 2010 issue of www.army.mil

WEST POINT, N.Y. (June 3, 2010) — Over the years, West Point has served as a sort of proving ground for improved camouflage. In the Engineering Psychology program within the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, faculty and cadets have done their part to advance the science of how not to be seen.

Dr. Timothy O’Neill is a camouflage consultant and a retired Army officer of 25 years, 15 of which were spent as an instructor here. During his tenure here, he founded the Engineering Psychology program and created the basis of the camouflage pattern on the Army Combat Uniform.

His work in camouflage began prior to graduate school with field testing at Fort Knox, Ky. While earning his doctorate, he picked up more ideas and brought them to the academy in 1976 as a first-year BS&L instructor. O’Neill created the “digital” camouflage concept, which he prefers to call texture match.

That year, his “Dual-Tex” pattern was tested here in the laboratory with the assistance of cadets and faculty. In May 1977, a research team, which included O’Neill, conducted a field test at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

Where the squared pattern came from, O’Neill said, is an interesting story.

“I needed to have a texture that matched natural backgrounds for a variety of reasons,” O’Neill said. “So we dragged a dead M113 armored personnel carrier out into the middle of a field … and painted it by hand. We painted the pattern with a two-inch paint roller (to make two-inch squares).”

Painting “Dual-Tex” onto the APC was what O’Neill called “an eyeball process,” because technology back then wasn’t sophisticated enough to replicate the pattern. Still, it tested well against camouflage patterns the Army used at the time.

Since he retired in 1991, O’Neill served as a camouflage consultant for a variety of entities. He designed the Marine Corps’ MARine PATtern, or MARPAT camouflage and worked with the Marines, Army, Office of Naval Research and Program Executive Office Soldier on various studies and adaptations of texture match.

Another camouflage-related project O’Neill worked on in the 1970s and ’80s was eye tracking. This technology was pioneered at West Point when the Engineering Psychology program conducted a number of studies on how the human visual system detects and recognizes camouflaged targets.

“Detecting a target is very complex-it involves both sensory and cognitive functions,” O’Neill said. “There’s not only the eye and brain interacting to find something, but there’s also decision-making that’s going on in the brain.”

Two semesters ago, O’Neill and a team of cadets tested texture match samples on uniforms and rifles using a modern eye-tracking system-a set of shooting glasses with two tiny video cameras mounted on the frame, which feeds visual data via to a computer.

The cameras measure the cornea and reflections off the retina to compute the angle and location which the eye is looking. Using this system, the team could measure the time it took to see the camouflaged objects and decide whether or not it was a target.

Second Lt. Jacob Frechette, a Fenton, Ill., native, was one of the engineering psychology majors who assisted O’Neill.

He learned how many human factors, from time of day to comfort level of the observer, can affect how effective the camouflage samples were.

“There’s a lot more (science) to it than putting some colors in a random pattern,” Frechette said. “It was a great way of bringing together all the skills we learned in biopsychology, cognitive psychology and engineering psychology.”

The science of engineering psychology includes the limits of human perception, sensation, and what the body itself is capable of. Frechette says this major taught him about how Soldiers think and feel, and what equipment his own Soldiers may use once he is commissioned as an aviation lieutenant.

“This is definitely one of most applicable majors for being an officer in the military,” Frechette said.

Last year, O’Neill was commissioned by Army PEO Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Va., to assist in the redesign of the ACU.

He is also working closely with Natick Soldier Systems Center in Massachusetts, Soldier Requirements Division at Fort Benning, Ga., and other agencies.

The aim of the project-which is still in research and development-is to reduce the number of Soldier uniform patterns to a practical minimum. The creation of those patterns will be driven primarily by their effectiveness in different combat environments, as well as how visually appealing they are. The latter goal is what the researchers call the “CDI factor” -or, “chicks dig it,” O’Neill said, because in addition to working well in the field, “it has to look good.”

O’Neill personally believes the end state will be two uniforms with snow overwhites. Though he is currently unable to discuss any particulars about the new uniform, O’Neill assures that they are developing it as fast as they can.

“Most people currently on active duty today will see the new uniform before they retire,” O’Neill said.