As if civilian fashion statements couldn’t be any more incomprehensible, Urban Outfitters has planted its own ludicrous flag into the fashion world with their newest accessory: a $30 highlighter-yellow, reflective belt. You know, the exact same type used by troops all over the world since the early ’90s.
At first, this news might confuse and frustrate you — it’s not stolen valor, but it’s definitely appropriation. Then, it’ll dawn on you: the fools who buy this belt are literally spending $30 on a product that you can buy for $8 at the PX. So, in a way, who can blame Urban Outfitters? Who wouldn’t want to pick up a few and sell them, making a cool $20 profit each?
Hell, we all have tough boxes full of a bunch of old uniform parts that hipsters would pay out the ass to own. The Afghanistan dust just adds character. It’s like the “distressed” or “worn-out” look that’s apparently a thing. Well, try these on for size:
1. Boonie caps
Everyone loves their boonie cap when they get issued one. Then, when they deploy, they quickly realize that they’re in a unit that doesn’t allow them to wear it. Occasionally, you’ll see some other soldier wearing it at one of the bigger, POGgier air bases, but that’s still not you.
Troops only really get the chance to wear them when they’re out of the service and decorate it with whatever kind of pins they can attribute to their military career. Hipsters love decorating their junk with more junk.
Enjoy it! You won’t be wearing that thing until you retire.
(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ashlee Lolkus)
2. Glove inserts
Hipsters go apesh*t over worthless things that seem (and are) cheaply made. There’s nothing more worthless and cheaply made than a 2nd Lt with a map those lime-green inserts that are supposed to be worn inside of actually-useful leather gloves.
In fact, those inserts are so garbage that soldiers will often find a different pair of gloves that are “in regulation” just to avoid having to wear anything that requires these things. To make matters worse, no one ever buys them, but we all have at least five spares that magically appeared on our CIF gear lists.
The leather shells can withstand countless air assault missions and not rip. The inserts can barely keep the wind out.
3. Ranger panties
Hipsters love wearing things ironically. There’s nothing veterans wear more ironically than the ranger panties that leave barely anything to the imagination.
Ranger panties are perfect for everything! You can run in them. You can sleep in them. You can go to the beach in them. You can slack off on the couch and watch Netflix because you’ve become fat and lazy since you got your DD-214 in them. You can even go hiking in them!
Feels like I’m wearing nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all…
(Ranger Up)
4. Green knee-high socks
As mentioned above, the magnitude of one’s hipsteriness is defined by how “rustic” their clothing looks. That’s why they’ll dress like lumberjacks despite having never touched an axe.
That means they’re chomping at the bit for any piece of clothing that starts to wear out after a single day! Luckily for all you hipsters out there, these green socks turn puke yellow after just one wear. Now that’s efficiency!
Thankfully, the two socks in each pair change color at about the same rate.
(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Brian A. Barbour)
5. Mess dress cape
Hipsters must go overboard with everything they wear — otherwise, they won’t get enough attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s the dead of summer, they’ll still wear a cardigan with a loud scarf. They keep beanies securely affixed to their heads until they’ve grown enough hair to sport a man bun.
Why not add the most over-the-top piece of an officer’s uniform? You know, that cape they’ve all secretly purchased but won’t dare wearing to the unit ball?
“Oh, god. Is Lieutenant Carl still trying to do the whole Batman thing?” — “Yeah, just ignore him and it’ll stop…”
(U.S. Marine Corps)
6. Those sexy AF military-issued skivvies
For some reason, hipsters always seem to dress like it’s laundry day. For the troops, laundry day is the only time that anyone would ever dare to put on these bad boys.
I mean, who doesn’t want to prove their manliness by having their genitals rubbed up against sandpaper all day?
Obviously a picture of them in the bag. The internet couldn’t handle the raw sexual energy that these things exude when worn by a model.
(Exchange)
7. GI glasses
I’d love to make some funny, sort of ironic joke about hipsters wanting to wear the BCGs — but that’s almost exactly the type of glasses that they actually wear, whether they need prescription lenses or not.
When troops who wear glasses get to their first unit, they immediately toss their up-armored eyewear and carry on wearing whatever else. Barely anyone in the history of these damned glasses has looked good in them — but for some reason, hipsters think they cracked the code.
Except this guy. He managed to pull the look off. But you are not this guy, so you can’t.
(Tennessee State Archives)
This article originally appeared on We Are The Mighty
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