Back in 2002 and into 2003, a tempest swirled in an Ottawa teapot over the combat fatigues Canadian troops were wearing to a war 10,600 kilometres away.
Here were our soldiers, God forbid, wearing green in the arid climes of Afghanistan. The uniforms were an embarrassment, declared the pundits and politicians, none of whom had set foot in Afghanistan or anyplace remotely like it.
Their case, countered one Afghanistan veteran, “was more political than it was tactical.”
The fact was, at least half the armies of the coalition—Middle East included—were wearing green.
And, in a stroke of serendipity, the Canucks’ crisp new fatigues faded after a couple of washings. The diluted green, combined with the powdery desert dust, proved ideal camouflage in much of the Afghan terrain, with its li...