I have tactical gear, I have never taken a gov’t paycheck, and I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks about it. It’s all about the 2A to me. You are not very effective within the meaning of the 2A if you have guns but don’t have the equipment to field and fight with them. Every rifle owner who believes in the 2A and it’s rationale that we need to be ready to go to war with the government needs to have at least a basic load bearing setup of some kind with mag pouches, at the very least. I do a lot of cross-country Run 'n Gun competitions, so I frequently run in my neighborhood with my full war belt setup. No fukcs given on my part.
Thanks for your service (also for the many others who served) and for your input.
There’s nothing wrong with having gear and using it as long as you don’t misrepresent it or paint gun owners in a bad light. I prefer to keep things covert myself, but don’t own any ‘tactical’ gear.
There is nothing wrong with wanting or owning military gear. However, as stated the uniform items are a different matter because of the “earned not given status” associated with them. As a former USMC communicator it took me years to even feel comfortable wearing a Marine Corps T-shirt as a civilian. Personally, I think many former military members, including myself, actually ask themselves why would anyone want this “stuff” to begin with? These days I feel the need to possess quality gear, but not the actual military issue.
I’m all for people owning whatever tactical gear they want, but some common sense should apply. To me, the biggest question when I see someone all geared out is “do they have a reason for it all?”
If you’re just buying and using gear you saw in a video or on a website just to have some cool kit, then yeah, you qualify as low level poser and deserve some ridicule for not being <18 and on an Airsoft field. However, if what you are wearing has a defined purpose that fits in with your individual needs, then by all means carry on. My rule of thumb is if it’s on your kit, it should fit into an ammo, water, or medical category. If it’s a “just in case” or “nice to have” item, than it can go into a pack/ruck with the rest of your sustainment gear.
Also, your overall look is going to drive peoples opinion. A beer belly is one thing, but nobody is going to take a waddling fatty bo batty decked out like he’s playing Call of Duty seriously. Perception is reality.
As a army grunt, and a total gear whore, I really don’t care. It does get borderline ridiculous sometimes though, watching two civilians get in heated Internet flame wars over what plate carrier is best based off their experience wearing it in front of the bathroom mirror. The huge civilian market drives a lot of innovation though, makes it so small innovative companies can stay afloat and still provide gear to the guys that actually use it where the rubber meets the road. There are some really squared away civilians out there, don’t get me wrong, but if you have a $600 plate carrier but can’t run a mile in it your priorities are ****ed up. So many civilian gear queers would get murked in a situation where they would have to wear armor, training is everything. Plenty of well trained high speed dudes have been going in to combat in IOTV’s, IBA’s, SPCS, or other armor systems that your typical civilian gear queer would scoff at the idea of showing up to their local carbine class in and consider totally unacceptable for their purposes. Your typical infantry guy thinks the KDH plate carrier he was issued in afg is the baddest thing around, just because its better than the IOTV that causes hit back pain and heat stroke back home. Your typical civilian gear queer isn’t comfortable unless his plate carrier cost more than what a PFC makes in a month and is never in stock on skdtac.
Again, I don’t care, but its all about priorities. Buy what makes your heart happy, but if you have better gear than CAG but can’t lift your ass you’re kind of a joke.
What he said.
I get a bit of a chuckle out of all the uber-liberty pro-2A folks with a house full of guns, and then they bitch about the cost of a basic set of decent support gear.
You paid HOW MUCH for that PC? You bet, and you paid how much for that scope that you’ll never get to 1,000 yards with?
Now, I’m obviously not a vet. (and the following uses “I”, “you”,etc in certain instances as general terms not necessarily specific to myself or anyone on this board)
But the way I see this is different strokes for different folks. Per what I said above- for some unknowable reason people love to hate on the “gear queers” or “gear whores” or whatever the flavor of the week are, often the same folks (or genre of) that have a safe full of… safe queens.
If one person feels the need to only “train as they intend to fight” in their EDC gear, great. If someone else wants to train as they intend to fight in full kit, well great for them too. I sure don’t care either way. Just don’t try to tell me that there’s something wrong with what I’m doing simply because you subscribe to a different method of thinking. It’s just like the fudds complaining about the “mass produced overpriced” black rifles, or the libtards trying to tell you that you’ll never need more than 1 round for self defense so standard cap magazines aren’t needed…
I also buy quality gear, because it’s one less failure point to worry about- the same reason why folks buy BCM and Surefire (or are goaded to do so even if they’ve never owned a rifle before. Funny that…).
Beyond that, I wear whatever I feel I need, and have given up worrying about fitting into the tactical mold of what every other person thinks. If they want to make fun of it because they think it’s to much (for their perceived use of course, and yes I have been over-judgey of others myself at times), or to expensive, or that I may be to unskilled for the level of gear, well, I know I can take a realistic look at where I stand in both a perceived use and skillwise and not let the cool gear feed my ego the the point where you become blind to the real-life facts. I’ll probably even agree with some of those persons. After that it’s on them whether they want to keep complaining or help the target of their complaining get better.
That being said, one wouldn’t likely find me in a totally ridiculous amount of kit in the first place, so some of this is a moot point I suppose…
I’m also not a big fan of showing the neighborhood what I own simply because in these days of thoughtless hysteria I don’t need the crazy cat lady next door calling a a SWAT team down on me…
Anecdotally, I was never a professional pilot, but I had a very nice DC headset (gifted to me, and yes, I would buy another if I ever got back into it) that I wore while I dabbled in that area, because it was an awesome headset. Put that in the context of the gun/gear community and I’m sure some folks would find a way to complain about that too…
I appreciate everyone’s contribute to this thread.
A few of you raised a good point about avoiding any sort of 2a advertisement and remaining a gray man. I never thought of that in regards to wearing a plate carrier while running. I’ll look into a weighted vest. Im surprised that I didn’t consider this because I’m a huge proponent of remaining off the radar in public. No nra sticker on my car, no firearm related t shirts, etc.
The majority of the time I train its with my edc, which would obviously benefit me most. I organized my kit for far fetched reasons but I feel better having it and knowing how to use it incase any zombies were previous gun owners and still know how to shoot.
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26 Inf, I read your post and it made me think a little more on what I wrote.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I was incorporating support of a company with support of our military. I think I’ve done this because of one specific shirt that seems to get the ole so you must have served asked to me. I have a BCM shirt that I bought and must have been asked at least five times while wearing it. I have no specific military clothing and I’m sorry because I think my first post was misleading.
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There is a guy in my gym who wears a camo wool hat, plate carrier, and pretends to shoot the walls with both pretend handguns and rifles.
Don’t be him.
Other than that wgaf what anyone owns?
This totally needs pics and vids if possible.
I think it’s closer to 95%… Seriously. After yesterday’s trip to the public range…
But most military guys I know are just as into building up their personal gear as many of us are.
I wear a Multicam Tactical Tailor hat with a muted American flag on the front. I get asked from time to time if I served and I always say that I did not. I had a great uncle get 2 pulple hearts in WW2. My father and one of his brothers served in Vietnam, a cousin and several close friends have served and some continue to serve in the most recent theater’s in the middle east.
There is no greater disrespect in my mind, to have someone lie about serving. I wear the hat to show my pride for not only my people who have served our country, but for the millions of service men and women, and their families.
It also allows me to cut the legs out from under the idiots who decide to take pot shots at our service people for providing the umbrella of protection for their service. Sometimes they assume the hat means I served and give me a hard time. I may not have served, but I will be damned if I let some chicken shit knock those who have.
Yup - a lot of my old friends across the country who are still big into airsofting have nicer kits than anything I’ve ever had… it’s some seriously nice stuff, and quite often really well thought out. I have some fun at their expense every time I point out no actual operator would have gear that nicely matched.
Anymore I’ve given up on trying to have very military appearing gear, and instead try to extract the same level of functionality out of stuff that can really blend in as much as possible in a semi-civilized environment. I’ve also found that having a good set of well-sorted Hiking/Biking clothing and equipment is arguably better, and actually doing those thing keeps me from letting those bags/clothes get out of date - my biking bag already has tools, FAK, and stuff on it, and riding every other day keeps the water in it fresh. Sure I look dumb on a brightly colored bike with a Tactical Tailor ROP and Ares manny pack, but it works brilliantly for both tasks… I’m still replacing it with a nondescript Jansport backpack and more generic other bag once I wear it out.
Like BattOperated, it’s probably obvious to some that I’m prior service, but I don’t go out of my way to wear moto crap - in fact the only EGA adorned clothing I own was either issued (and lived in a box in my closet) or came from Goodwill (ironically, most of my favorite stuff).
Generally, I know my tendency is to be an equipment whore and perpetual under-user for capability. Guns, Bikes, Gear, Instruments, Computers - you name it, if I care about it I have equipment that’s too nice for how I use it, yet want ever higher end stuff as almost a goal of buying more capability. I consider this tendency to be far worse than whether somebody else views it as inefficient; honestly my biggest issue with the sort of folks that have really high end gear is that almost all of it is destined to end up getting resold in practically fresh-out-of-box condition years later, which means that gear could have been put to better use - I’m quite guilty of this myself.
As far as the wannabees who are willing to lie about previously serving – those idiots tend to self-solve just fine, so I don’t waste my time worrying about that. If anything, the worst part about that is that the cool interesting people I’ve been in with (basically anybody who doesn’t fit the military stereotype) have to deal with people questioning whether or not they actually served, which is pretty disappointing.
I’ll echo what others have said, as long as you aren’t just doing it to look cool or impersonate , go for it. Owning a PC to be prepared is a good thing IMO, regardless of being a vet or not. Hell, I’ve almost got more gear for off duty shooting/training than issue gear.
I had something similar happen to me at about the same age. My father’s a Marine, so I’ve always gotten my haircuts the same place he got his, in the same style, even after he got out. On top of that, I was always one of the tallest kids in school, no matter whether it was elementary, middle, or high. So we go out to Hawaii and I pick up a navy blue USS Enterprise CVN-65 hat from the gift shop at Pearl Harbor. I’m a Trekkie, always was, always will be, not to mention that I was a big reader of Tom Clancy and in pictures, he always seemed to wear a similar hat. I wore the hat for the rest of the trip, including the flights back.
Anyway, we’re debarking the last plane (and we’d already been in the air for however many hours from Honolulu to San Fransisco, then flying from San Fransisco to home) and the flight crew is wishing everyone a good day, safe journeys, thanks for flying with us, blah-blah-blah. Comes to be my turn to walk by the flight crew and I’m smiling and thanking them and the captain suddenly says, “Big E, huh?”
Well, as a middle schooler, completely exhausted by flying all day and sitting around airports the rest of the day (and having spent the entire day prior to leaving Honolulu in the airport at Honolulu, which was fun), all I could think to do was smile and keep walking.
Lesson learned. But I kept wearing the hat through out the rest of middle school, anyway. I don’t remember what ever happened to it.
He probably thought your Dad served on the Big E or something.
I have no problem with people wearing military pride attire, as long as they aren’t posing or impersonating. It’s a way of showing pride in country and service, and I’ve given some items to family members who genuinely appreciate and wear them. The country could always use more patriotism, IMO. Showing pride is not the same as posing, but it’s important for the wearer to know the difference.
I’ll echo what others have said on the grey man concept. But by all means, own quality gear and know how to use it to your heart’s desire.
I think gear only becomes a problem when it is allowed to replace actual expertise in the mind of the owner. I have some great gear, and some not so great gear. But I will never assume I know more than someone because his gear, weapon, etc. is set up differently from mine. In all probability, he’s got more trigger time than me, especially if I’m at a class or shooting event. The guys that bother me are the ones who just know it all, even though they clearly don’t.
My oldest son was on the USS Constellation (CV-64) - I just realized I wore the hat he gave me w/o a thought for several years - until he was out, which was well before she was scrapped.
Like others have said, do whatever you want to do. But if you’re looking for something a little more low key than a plate carrier they do make weighted vests for working out.
If someone is running around a suburban neighborhood in a multicam plate carrier I’m probably going to thing they’re a little goofy…or a little sad. Ditto for the 400 pound IT worker who shows up at the range with the latest, highest-speed gear.
But that’s my problem, and my “veteran” status doesn’t give my opinion any more weight than anyone else’s.
I had the great privilege to serve with some phenomenal men and women, and I got paid to do it. I did what I did because I wanted to do it.
As such, nobody owes me jack squat. While I appreciate the gesture, you don’t have to thank me for my service or pay for my cup of coffee when you see my Army ball cap. And you certainly don’t need to be concerned about hurting my feelings.
Most of the general issue stuff that the military gives their masses is complete garbage to begin with, typically in design. Most Soldiers that I know, me included, buy the civilian stuff for deployment use as it is FAR better. The military could save money AND supply their combatants with better gear if they didn’t use the contract designed stuff and bought off the shelf. So I guess that makes most military personnel serious about their gear- gear whores too, to a certain extent.