Action line 80907 - Blues in high threat areas

  • Published
  • By Anonymous
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Complaint:

It's good to wear our blues uniform, but why are we wearing our blues in a high-threat area. In the U.S or areas far from an area such as we are in, I can totally understand the wear of the Air Force Blues. But, we are in a high-threat area and it is stressed every week at work, at every Roll Call, and on every AFN channel how much of a high-threat area we are in. Why wear Blues? Also, why is there a blanket policy? Why are people working in TMO tearing down boxes and stacking shelves wearing Blues? The final decision that was made, was it base or squadron commander's decision?

Response:

Thanks for taking the time to write and I agree with you...it's good to wear our blue uniforms more regularly again! Regarding our threat posture, I'm not sure what that has to do with our uniform ... does wearing ABUs make you any safer? We only wear our uniforms on base so I see no reason why one uniform would be any "safer" than the other.

As for the decision...the buck stops here. There are going to be exceptions to this policy, but only the minimum necessary; I will be working with your commanders to establish a wear policy that makes sense. We will get the decisions out this week. In the mean time, wear your blues with pride ... before 2001, we wore them all the time...it's about time we got back regular use of one of our basic uniforms.