Just wondering, I've seen a fair bit of footage of Marines deployed in (mostly) Iraq and Afghanistan wearing a single tone tan uniform rather than MARPAT.

What is this? Is this some sort of winter / cold weather uniform, vehicle crewman's or something i'm missing?

Cheers, Luke

Overalls/flightsuits. They're nomex and some HHQ types are (IMO) overly worried about burns. IME, they're fragile, lack pockets in the right places and just generally are best suited to a niche role. S/F....Ken M

Beautiful, thanks.
My initial thought was they were some new sort of fireproof suit (the first time I saw them was a few minutes after reading about burns from IED's on TN) but then i figured they were some sort of winter suit due to thickness.

The guys wearing them in a lot of footage i've seen seem to be pointy-end types though which is why I was a little perplexed.

Cheers, Luke

A retired ARVN SSGT Gyrene (Fred Gamel) who works three floors up from me had two son's in Iraq (Peter and Nathan?). He was pointing to the Nomex flight suits as being something certain Company's would wear. Apparently, for that particular deployment, the various companies of that particular MarDiv would wear something that was particular to their unit ( I think company but it may have been by battalion). One was wearing camo nets on their helmets. Another was wearing the nomex flight suits. The suits, he said were preferred because the 'knuckleheads' in that area were using a lot fuel with their IEDS and it was felt by some of the companies that it was an advantage for protection. He was specifically pointing to it though because he could recognize some of the guys from his son's unit on video. At some point one of the newsies realized that the Marine's dad worked for CNN and handed him the company sat phone to call dad up and have a chat.

I might be wrong on details, but they were definitely rifle companies and not Fobbits in camera.

I saw a great many US Marines in Helmand wearing the tan flightsuits, overalls. I asked one why that was and he said it was due to fire and that they were nomex. Also saw some 101st aircrew wearing tan fatigues. Looked like the old BDUs but single-colour desert tan.

Might there be an element of comfort, where abrasion resistance is not such a factor? The VN-era "Shirt & Pants, Flying, Hot Weather, Fire Resistant" Nomex was extremely comfortable. (I used as sleepware sometimes up north in winter). We were also blessed with their being authorized for wear at the Armor Board among crews from the Laser Rangefinder Test, forward. If they got wet, they dried so fast we thereafter referred to them as our "quick drys".

The Tan cover-alls were the uniforms preferred by the Police Transition Teams in Al Anbar when i was there. We drove from Hit to Falujah to pick ours up (amongst other things)...good times.

In hindsight, i think this preference had something to do with simply looking different, more than anything else. The coveralls were a status symbol to the TTs. I never really saw any line doggie types running around in them...just MARPAT or ACUs depending on where you were. Just my observation, and not saying infantry co. types didnt have them. I just never saw them on anyone but the TTs.

I personally got away from the flight suits rather quickly after a bad dose of Kebab. Durn things didn't have an @$$ flap like CVC coveralls do. I went back to ACUs rickety tick.

Galloglass

lol, wasn't that the reason the WWII USMC coveralls were ditched in the pacific theatre?