And now, for something completely different...

Def Sec Gates says, "No more Fatigue Uniforms in the Pentagon."

I applaud this return to common sense, not to mention a certain professional decorum. Never having been to the Pentagon, let alone worked there, I can only say that seeing Officers and EM around town in other areas of the country, looking as though they belonged on a work detail policing the grounds rather than conducting official business, has never seemed appropriate.

Once the hole in Manhattan quit smoking--and it did take quite a while--it was enough already with the self-aggrandizing Rambo posturing (remember the troops in the airports with no ammunition in their M-16s, post-9/11?) and time to get back to running a Defense establishment. We know well that the Military are all that stand between us and the Commie/Islamist hordes, and it is to our guys and gals in uniform that we owe the opportunity to continue this Grand Experiment we call the USA. Nonetheless, the folks (and it's not that many of us anymore) who are paying the bills don't go to work in the same clothes in which we do yard chores and neither should the folks who are spending all those billions. If you are carrying a brief-case, instead of a rake or an M-16, then dress like you've got the key to the executive washroom, instead of like the guy who burns the contents of those barrels behind the latrine.

Another thing: lose the cartoonish colored ribbons, except perhaps on Dress/Ceremonial uniforms. This is the 21st Century--there are neither knights, barons, dukes nor other nobles who command a practiced obeisance as they make their way through the halls and across the parking lot. Only the guy at the next desk knows what the ribbons stand for, and I'd bet the civilian staff neither know nor care. The fruit salad says nothing about your ability to withstand the blandishments of defense contractors.