Lots of military training seems to get participants even dirtier than the kids in detergent advertisements – how do military personnel manage all this washing and ironing to get them looking immaculate again? How do their machines cope with all the grime?
I have clothes that, no matter what, will never get shiny white again – do militaries just throw this sort of stuff away knowing it’ll never be appropriate for the parade ground again?
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We have multiple uniforms. Some only get worn to the field, while others are set aside for wearing in garrison. Once you’re out of boot camp, you know full well which days you’re going to be “in the office” and which days you’re going to be “playing in the mud.” It isn’t uncommon for military personnel to have four or five field uniforms that are basically just “wash and wear” and four or five daily “in the office” uniforms, and we *never* cross wear.
We also keep them separate because a *lot* of normal laundry chemicals (the soaps fabric softeners, etc.) tend to cause problems for the field uniforms. Depending on the time period, office uniforms were dry-cleaned and starched, which made them stick out like a sore thumb when using night vision goggles (starched uniforms reflected IR light like a goddam mirror). Modern uniforms are often treated with antimicrobial and flame-retardant chemicals which have to be laundered a specific way to preserve the treatments, too.
So we keep track of which is which and don’t mix them up.
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