Looking through fishing gear, I came across an old army hat, which served me faithfully on business trips to places where the sun often turns from friend to enemy. A simple cotton bucket hat with a simple soldier's red star.
Those who spent their army youth in Central Asia, Afghanistan and some other regions keep this army rarity at home. It's a very convenient thing. And in the rain it will keep its head, and in the heat it will save it from sunstroke, and it fits in the pocket easily when the need for a headdress disappears.
For most, even those who had a Panama hat as an ordinary headdress, its story began and ended exactly when the documents on dismissal from the SA or the Navy were received. But this headdress has a very interesting history. A story that turns 80 this year!
It was in March 1938, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, that Panama was introduced as a headgear for all categories of servicemen who served in areas with hot climates. It is for all categories, regardless of military rank and position.
If you look at the chronicle of those pre-war years, you can see the future Marshal Zhukov in Panama. True, then he was a corps commander, commanded the 1st army group on Khalkhin Gol. And in the Crimea, fighters and commanders sported it in panamas. They say there were units in the Transcaucasus.
By the way, those Panamas were a little different from our Afghan women. But the army force was the same. The fact is that Panamas were subject to the same order as other hats.
Remember the band on your cap? By the color of the band, it was possible to distinguish the belonging of a soldier to different types of troops. Multicolor, which even today remains a special army tradition.
An easier way of identification was invented for the pre-war Panamas. On the "forehead" was sewn an asterisk of the color of the type of troops to which the soldier belonged. And already on this cloth star a metal one was pricked.
There was one more difference. True, this is already a technological difference. The advent of oilcloth led to the replacement of the fabric chin strap with an oilcloth strap. And in the first samples there was exactly the same fabric as the material of the Panama itself.
Do you remember what the dandies looked like in Afghanistan? If the chin strap is not threaded back to its original position, but simply thrown over the edges of the panama and reinforced on the top of the head, then … Isn't he the first guy in the village? Where are all these cowboys and Mexicans!
Again, if the commander does the sticking, even when putting the panama in order, the folded edges remained for some time. And let the foreman at least turn green, looking for wire in the fields of Panama. Army force …
In general, it is strange for me that the Panamas have been forgotten. All these caps and other modern hats are beautiful. Kepi were also worn by officers in Afghanistan. But all this beauty has one important drawback. Soldier's ears!
Not some abstract ears, but those that are given from birth. And they burn in sunny weather so that the pain radiates to the brain. There is also not far anatomically. Centimeters.
Today our MTRs operate in various conditions, including in Syria. And other military personnel too. Why is any aircraft technician at the airfield suffering? Panama will save the sun from "love". Well, the Soviet generals were not fools, when in 1969 they adopted a new model of Panamas.
So let's celebrate the anniversary of our army panama. And those who know this headdress personally, and those who saw it only on TV. Let him come back faster.
