So I was over at the mall for lunch today, and was walking through Sears on the way back to the parking lot, when I saw a display for some sweaters in the men’s department. They were olive drab, but that’s a pretty common color choice in men’s fashions, but I happened to notice a patch on the right shoulder, just like the one in the picture. No other branding or logos, just that patch. As I looked at it, I thought to myself, “that’s awfully military looking”.

So, when I got back to the office where I’m working today and had a little downtime to catch up on my RSS feed, I noticed this story from AdAge right away. Sure enough, the U.S. Army is licensing the logo of the First Infantry Division, also known as “The Big Red One” (you might remember a Lee Marvin movie of the same name from the 1980s).

People have been putting military patches on their clothes, or wearing patch-bearing military surplus for years, but I think this is the first time that the Army has actually licensed out a well-known insignia like that. No doubt it will be popular with the gung-ho pro-military right-wing crowd. The sweater itself was decent-looking, and I might buy one if it DIDN’T have the patch — I don’t have anything against the military in particular, I just don’t think it adds anything to have it on the sweater. And if the Army has done it, you know before long there will be similar fashion statements from the other branches as well.

I suppose it’s better than having sponsor logos on the uniforms of the soldiers. It’s a little too easy to imagine a great big Halliburton logo on the shoulder of each and every soldier in Iraq.