Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer
At Fort Hood in Texas, an order recently came down for a "rush" job on 49 military vehicles — specifically, that they be repainted from their current desert camouflage to a green color that's more suited to woodlands or temperate climates.
According to The San Antonio Express-News, "Gary Pasley, his partner, David Stidham, and a small team of soldiers had just 19 days to repaint 49 pieces of military equipment ranging from Humvees to medium tactical vehicles" earlier in June.
The Express-News explains:
The GIs washed the vehicles and equipment so Pasley and Stidham could paint them a dull green, covering the familiar desert tan. That prompted Pasley, 44, an Iraq War veteran, to speculate that the Army’s priorities were shifting away from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
“I’m pretty sure that we’re downsizing from that region of the world and kind of focused on our efforts elsewhere, so I would say the vehicle (color) might be terrain appropriate,” Pasley said.
Just where the new focus might be, neither he nor the Army could say.
After 20 years of fighting wars in vehicles painted to match the desert, Fort Hood now has a relative handful of vehicles made over with a basic olive drab — the Army calls it “woodland green” — that can serve as the primer for a common camouflage pattern standardized for each vehicle type.
As yet, no camo has been applied.
The vehicles are those of Fort Hood’s 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, which issued a brief statement saying the action “signals a switch in readiness from fighting in arid places like the Middle East to fighting in more verdant regions.”
Verdant as in green, with grass or other rich vegetation. Though the Army didn’t elaborate, that could be islands in the Pacific or forests in Europe. The Marines have recently conducted field training in Norway.
The 13th ESC’s commander said in an interview that the order was part of building “field craft” among soldiers, whether they’re training to fight in Europe, as the 1st Cavalry Division is now pegged to, or with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, where the 4th Infantry Division, formerly at Fort Hood but now at Fort Carson, Colo., would be deployed under current war plans.
The report on the rushed refresh for the vehicles' paint points out that the "last time the Army painted its vehicles, the shift in priorities — and location — was readily apparent" when the U.S. "went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq with multiple divisions, hundreds of thousands of troops." The Express-News noted that the fresh paint jobs are "part of the Pentagon’s move away from counterinsurgency warfare and a return to what some call 'great power' conflicts that could involve China and Russia. If it feels like the old Cold War to those of a certain age, well, it should," the report added.
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