[BlueTrain]

I remember the time in the army when you had to get your long sleeve khaki shirts shortened and when subdued sleeve insignia came in. Then later, in the National Guard, rank (if you had any) insignia was on the collar of your fatigue shirt, but I was out before the wash and wear fatigues were issued.

Mostly the thing in "real life," especially in the army, is to have the latest thing. Motion pictures, on the other hand, when depicting current events with regards to the military, especially foreign military, sometimes are a little behind the times because of the very real shortages of up to the minute gear. That's why the Germans in movies made during WWII sometimes had World War One helmets.

For most of us, there hasn't been a movie that show much of what the army was like when we served, if any movie ever did. There were parts of "We were soldiers once" (is that the right name) that were so correct and familiar that it was a little disturbing. I never saw "Gardens of Stone" but I think that was the right time period for my army experience.

A lot of historical periods are very interesting to me and I'm only thinking of ones in the last 250 years in this country. But hardly all of them had anything to do with war or the military. I don't think anyone re-enacts the Gold Rush of 1898--or 1849 for that matter. But those periods, brief as they were, are fascinating and there is some firearm history in there somewhere, too.

One of the interesting things about the British Army is that although they keep introducing new things, they never seem to stop using the old things. Supposedly windproof smocks in tan were issued for the Gulf War that had been manufactured in WWII. Probably just a rumor.