The word “uniform” is derived from the Latin words “unus,” one, and “forma,” form, and includes the different styles of dress adopted by the Military and Naval services to secure the distinction required.

1866 Willard Civil War Uniform Photos

The Manufacturing Branch of this Depot ordinarily is called the factory, but in reality it is much more than “a factory,” being composed of a group of fourteen to twenty factories as the occasion may require.

When we speak of ”uniforms,” we immediately think of clothing of similar design made of cloth of like construction and color worn by personnel of military as well as of some civilian and semi-civilian organizations, such as the police departments, fire departments, postal departments and fraternal orders.

From the collection of the Quartermaster Museum, memorandum indicating clothing issued to new soldiers at Camp Lee, VA in 1943

Originally the program was instituted to give winter-weather indoctrination to units headed from America’s east coast to the European Theatre.

Warfare is rough on shoes. Army shoes must stand up under hard marching, mud, snow, and the severities of the weather. Warfare requires a lot of shoes, and it requires stout shoes.

Today, when the incoming soldier appears at the clothing counter of a reception center, his measurements are carefully taken, his proper clothing is drawn to those measurements (sixty-six items in all), and a professional tailor then sets to work to give an almost custom-made trimness to an issue uniform.

This document from the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum Archives provides a well researched and written history of the Quartermaster Corps’ development of the Army Green Uniform.

Fashion decrees Greenish-Grat for the Army Uniform in Place of Olice Drab, if the G.I. approves the change.

Prestige of the soldier reflects on the service as a whole. During national emergencies he is held in the greatest esteem by the public and Congress.

It is the inevitable culmination of the rapid and sound extension of scientific thinking in the solution of problems of the Quartermaster Corps.

In 1942 a shortage of metallic armor established an urgent requirement for the development and production of a new nonmetallic armor.

Despite the widespread popular use of the term, no military service has developed a practical “bullet-proof” vest.

Self preservation is the greatest single motivating factor in man’s existence. Physiologists, for the most part, agree that when survival is the prime issue, protection from the elements takes precedence over food.