![]() Female drill instructors protested, and the slouch hat remained. Perhaps to signal women’s equality, the Army proposed in the 1980s moving female drill instructors to the male campaign hats. For the first few years, the female hat was beige until the Army started phasing in the today’s dark green. These were in place of the traditional campaign hats worn by male drill sergeants. The first six women to graduate from Fort Jackson’s Drill Sergeant Program were assigned new pinned slouch hats designed by Brigadier General Mildred C. That is, until women were authorized to serve as Army Drill Sergeants for the first time in 1972. But, if so, why did all other Australian state units (except Tasmania) turn up the brim on the left side? Fashion has to be at least part of the motive for the new look.Īnd fashion is also the reason people stopped wearing them in the United States in the 20 th century. The turned-up right side ensured the brim would not be caught during the drill movement of “shoulder arms” from “order arms.” Why did the Australians pin the brim to the side? According to the Australian Army website, the Victorian Mounted Rifles invented the style by turning up the right-side brim on an ordinary bush felt hat. ![]() Manhattan resident Colonel Theodore Roosevelt famously sported a pinned slouch hat while leading the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry-the so-called Rough Riders-in the Spanish-American War. During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops wore them-but only in the sparsely populated Western theater. The felt slouch hat-nicknamed for the practice of wearing it at an angle-became common among rough outdoorsmen in the American West in the nineteenth century. But today, female drill instructors (called Drill Sergeants in the Army and Military Training Instructors in the Air Force) are the only US military personnel authorized to wear the distinctive head covers. The Army replaced AIT Drill Sergeants with Platoon Sergeants in 2008, but a decade later reversed the decision.The slouch hat with the brim pinned on the side is an icon of the Australian military, and it used to be common in service branches around the world, including the United States Army. Drill Sergeants trained recruits during the first and second phases of their training, Basic Combat Training (“boot camp”) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT), as well as at One Station Unit Training (the two phases combined). ![]() The most recent edition of the Army’s uniform regulations-the edition of DA 670-1-is notable for a rather astonishing list of entries that should have been deleted, and of course there is no way of knowing what errors of omission need to be corrected in the next edition.ĭiscontinued following the conclusion of World War II, Drill Sergeant Hats were brought back after the Army introduced Drill Sergeants in pilot programs held at Fort Gordon, Georgia and Fort Jackson, South Carolina in 1963 and then implemented Drill Sergeants service-wide. However, this should not be presumed to be conclusive proof that plastic rain covers are not authorized for wear with Drill Sergeant Hats. All that is said regarding plastic rain-cap covers is that (1) they are an optional purchase item, (2) they must completely cover the crown and visor, and (3) males may wear them with the Blue Service Cap. Army uniform regulations do not provide wear guidance regarding clear, plastic rain covers for the Drill Sergeant Hat, also referred to as a “Campaign Hat” or colloquially as a “Round Brown” (World War II regulations called them “Service Hats”).
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