"wearing helmets" Topic

When I was in the U.S. Marine Corps infantry(1986-1993)
You had to threaten to kill most Marines to get them to wear a helmet.
Whenever I see U.S. Army or U.K. Soldiers theyre always wearing the things.
Has this changed or is this just service specific.

Mongo

I think it has to do with the large amount of actual combat and large number of blasts. Helmets help, and leaders insist they are worn. The new ones are a lot more comfortable than what you were issued too. That helps some.

The new helms have a custom padded kit and fit dead on.

I use one of the padding kits in my 14lb 5th century fighting helm and I can where it all day like a ball cap.

All (most of) your modern (US) armed forces personnel grew up wearing them on bicyles, and being strapped into safety-pods in their parents' cars… I doubt they have the same innate objections as folks of previous times did. Besides, the helmets are better now.
-Kle.

A few weeks back I was getting in a Humvee with some of my Soldiers. We were in garrison and helmets were not required, but I wore mine anyway. When a Soldier asked why I was wearing it, I told him that I rather liked my head and would prefer that it keep its shape. So a part of it is the standards and expectations the leaders enforce.

The old PASGT helmet with its webbed interior was admittedly a pain; it required a lot of improvised padding and I avoided wearing it whenever possible. The new ACH helmets with the padding kits are quite comfortable and I could wear mine all day. I've taken several trips to Iraq and Afghanistan; On a battlefield where IEDs are the primary health hazard, you'd be insane to go outside without a helmet.

If you are really close to the IED that helmet is not going to be much good to you.

While I hated wearing the things while in the Army the thing I would not have like was having to keep the chin strap button.

Not very bright when you are likely to run into IED's.

Very quick way to get a broken neck due to the force of the blast.

But the higher ups thought that you would look better with it strap.

Had to look petty for the media.

I'm not unfamiliar with IEDs, but have yet to come across a case of a British soldier who broke his neck because he had his chinstrap done up.

Mind you, I've had the odd one try all sorts of nefarious tales to avoid wearing protective equipment on exercise. Funnily enough, such nonsense generally tails off as you approach a deployment :-))

Yeah, I've lived in Plymouth too…

Despite having been based there for a while and growing up down the road, my user name comes from the other type of janner. The clue is in my avatar ;-)