New Boonie Hat Design

I'm not military more like civilian with police training and got into the private security back in 04
 
Well, I don't sew them personally, but it is my company that manufactures these.
Our boonie has been accepted by active SOF on a large scale so apparently they see the design and functionality.
And no, I have not worked in the jungle, but I have done my time in some ugly shit. If we find ourselves in Laos or Cambodia I'll make a version without the 550.
 
Never said you had not been in the shit, just said you had not been in the jungle, although I wish you had been with us.
 
Well hot damn! I wish I would've been too, but I was prolly still wearing diapers.
I have been in pretty thick stuff, but nothing that fits into the jungle category. Went through some reeds once that were so thick we had to knock them over and climb over them. That literally put us about 4' off the ground.
 
I hated the elephant grass; sharp as razor blades and would survive a napalm attack. Charlie knew how to "run" through the crap without leaving a trail you could actually follow.
Triple canopy jungle is a real Adrenalin booster too, especially when you were attempting to be extracted and the 34 could not get a penatrator down through the canopy.
 
Very similar to the hats we wore. Marine boonies did have the wider brim; Army SF had the smaller brim. Unlike regular infantry units, we never wore helmets. Too hot, too heavy and comfort and function outweighed the risk. This was mine:

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Teammates John Shockley and Stretch Stravaaldsen, contact, Feb 1971
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Shockley on the 79 has the standard-issue boonie. At some point, however, the short-brim version started making the rounds through our unit and some of the guys prefered them.

R.J. Carrier and Frenchy Pellitier at LZ Baldy
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I like your design. I'm not sure I'd want the strings in the jungle, as the vegetation tends to "grab" at things like radio antennas, gear straps, etc...but being able to add foliage to the hat would be very functional in broken or more open terrain like bush, woodlands, grassy plains and hills. :thumbsup:
 
Last edited:
pardus said:
I would've kicked you ass for doing that!
Click to expand...

Deservedly so, :thumbsup: but in truth, a not uncommon practice among the old hands in low-threat sites, and passed down to astonished FNGs. Never, of course, in the "hairer" parts of your AO. Like our fathers before us, we were a generation of nicotine addicts. You could look at a man's hands and tell if he spent a lot of time outside the wire because his palms were indelibly stained a yellowish-brown from cupping a cigarette completely in his palms, just the filter protruding from between his thumbs. It burned the shit out of your hands when you took a drag, but one got accustomed to the pain. When you lived out there, all the time, as we did, you knew--you just knew--when it was safe to bend the rules and when it wasn't. Despite a few heretical breaches of the operational bible, we were pretty good at finding and killing the enemy. Sorry for the hijack, Pardus, just a bit of VN war trivia.
 
Iris143,

Do you have a website for your product? I'm a huge fan of quality covers due to my fair hair and complexion! I really favor a "boonie" during the warm weather and my woodland camo boonie has seen better days!
 

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