The few and the proud just got a bit more debonaire.
For the first time since its authorization for wear in the 1800s, both male and female Marines whose rank or officer status qualifies them can wear one of the Corps’ rarest and most pricey dress accessories: the boat cloak.
That’s according to a Marine Administrative message published this month. According to the message, female officers and staff noncommissioned officers are now authorized to wear “either the boatcloak or the cape” with the evening and dress and blue dress Alpha and Bravo uniforms.
This decision, along with a raft of other tweaks to uniform policy, was made personally by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith at a meeting of the Marine Corps Uniform Board in October, according to the message.
The prospect of a unisex boat cloak was raised last year as one of a number of proposals presented to rank-and-file Marines in a survey to gauge their interest in changes — the first such survey since 2019, and the first conducted under Smith’s tenure.
At the time, Uniform Board Program Manager Mary Boyt told Marine Corps Times that any change would keep the boat cloak “an optional, special-order item,” but give more Marines the opportunity to wear it.
“Very few people actually buy the boat cloak, because it’s very expensive,” Boyt said at the time, adding that the item enjoys a “niche popularity, especially near Washington, D.C.
“So, this would just be giving the female Marines the opportunity to wear the same cloak that the males are wearing with their standing collar.”
However, the new authorization does not include one change Boyt predicted: there’s no language in the MarAdmin that would phase out the shorter dress cape that had been previously authorized for women. Thus, both options remain available to female Marines indefinitely.
A Marine Corps spokesman, Maj. Hector Infante, told Military Times Wednesday that the boat cloak proposal “was formally raised through official requests to the Marine Corps Uniform Board, reflecting interest and demand from the operating forces.”
The Uniform Board does not typically release data on voting or how many requests they receive about specific uniform matters.
Interest in broadening wear authorization for the boat cloak is notable because of how rarely seen the item is. Military Reddit forums and social media pages track sightings of the scarlet-lined cloak “in the wild.”
At a recent Marine Corps birthday ball attended by this reporter, a staff noncommissioned officer sporting the cloak was met with offers of free drinks.
The heavy, knee-length cloak, purported to weigh around seven pounds, is a vestige of history that has persisted even as other accessories have been retired. This year, Business Insider featured the story of a Marine Corps boat cloak that had been handed down through generations for almost 80 years.
Other items have not fared as well. The two-foot “swagger stick,” for example, approved as a dress item in the early 1900s and sported perhaps most famously by Army. Gen. George S. Patton, was formally discouraged by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Shoup in an address to staff in 1960.
“In general I feel that a clean, neat, well-fitted uniform with the Marine Corps emblem is tops. There is no need for gimmicks and gadgets,” he said. He did, however, stop short of banning or retiring the item.
“If you feel the need of it, carry it,” he said, according to a transcript kept by Marine Corps University.
Handmade to order in dark blue broadcloth and scarlet wool, boat cloaks cost $850 new from The Marine Shop, edging out the ceremonial officer’s sword with accessories at around $770 for priciest uniform accessory. The Uniform Board did not consider ongoing demand for the item in its process, officials said.
“The Marine Corps Uniform Board does not track the sale or purchase of individual uniform items,” Infante said. “Sales and purchasing data are managed through supply and retail systems outside the Board’s scope.”
Other newly authorized uniform changes rolled out this month include permission for female Marines to wear black suede, cloth or leather pumps with the evening dress uniform, in addition to the standard patent leather; addition of the tan tanker jacket to the seabag of new Marines in addition to the All-Weather Coat; and updates to improve and simplify placement of medals and ribbons on the uniform.
Additional guidance on tanker jacket fielding is forthcoming, officials said.
Read the full article here
