Military and Police Uses
In the Indian subcontinent, balaclavas are commonly referred to as monkey caps, due to their typical earth tone colours, and the fact that they blot out most human facial features. Monkey caps sometimes have a small, decorative, woollen pom-pon on top. They are commonly worn by troops on Himalayan duty for protection from the cold.
The United States Marine Corps has recently begun issuing balaclavas with hinged face guards as part of the Flame Resistant Organizational Gear program.
The balaclava became a part of standard OMON (special police task force) uniform as early as the Perestroyka years of the late 1980s. The original intent was to protect the identity of the officers to avoid intimidation from organized crime. Due to increased problems with organized crime of the 90s, TV shots of armed men in black balaclavas became a staple of sorts. As the organized crime went down, however, balaclavas became an instrument of intimidation as much as identity protection, as they don't allow one to see the facial expression of the enforcement officer or identify him conclusively. Armed Russian police commonly conduct raids and searches of white-collar premises (typically in Moscow) while wearing balaclavas. Such raids have therefore come to be known in Russia as "maski shows", an allusion to popular comic TV show of the 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Balaclava (clothing)
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or police:
“Were in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“There was never a man born so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world with him, who delight in his faculty, and report it. I cannot see without awe, that no man thinks alone and no man acts alone, but the divine assessors who came up with him into life,now under one disguise, now under another,like a police in citizens clothes, walk with him, step for step, through all kingdoms of time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)