i mentioned the m-65 jacket last week and how i wanted one.  i ended up ordering the jacket from the army surplus site i mentioned.  it came this weekend and i couldn’t have been more excited to throw it on, and then i threw it on.  it was huge.  i took it off and checked the size again.  it was definitely a medium.  i looked in the mirror one more time.  the sleeves seemed to hit in the right places, but the jacket swallowed me.  my wife even asked me why i insisted on wearing clothes that made me look frumpy.  she had a point.  i looked stupid.  i began to think of the fatigue jacket i saw at j. crew and how i wondered if it might be a better fit, so i went to the mall and tried it on.  the medium fit me perfectly.  it was snug in the right parts and actually looked nice.

i’ve always been a hater of the unauthentic.  if i was going to get an m-65 jacket, i was going to get the real mccoy.  i didn’t want some designers interpretation of one.  this weekend i learned my lesson.  as cool as military stuff is, it exists for a reason: to serve the military.  it doesn’t look cool on some slightly overweight 30-year old who is probably way too into movies about vietnam.  in the future if i want to go military, then i’m going unauthentic.  i choose not looking frumpy over having to make up some lie about how my vietnam vet uncle gave me his m-65 jacket (not that i would ever do that).