UPDATE: 1st Sgt. Dwayne Farr

[Dave]

Well.. that's a fine "how do you do?"!!!

My apologies. I definitely came off somewhat abrupt. It certainly wasn't my intent, but I was a bit frustrated, after the considerable discussion about why UK wasn't doing it, to have it attributed to them.

Point one... yes the gift was an OUTSTANDING effort by the guys on the UK boards. The time, effort and originality was incredible. I'm still trying to see where what is posted above mentions anything about UtiliKilt. By the way, the owner's a friend of mine.

Thank you. The original article did, in fact, state that Utilikilts had sent 1stSgt Farr a kilt.

Point two... there's not ONE kiltmaker that DID do this as a publicity "stunt". You may not have meant to sound like that, but it obviously did. Again, virtually all the kiltmakers are friends of mine.

My point, obviously not clearly, was that UK had not sent one, specifically to avoid the appearance of a publicity stunt. Certainly no other manufacturer has claimed that as their reason for doing so. But your response is as biased as you assumed my original statement to be. You are no more psychic than I.

Point three... the sizing that was acquired by others came DIRECTLY from the man and was confirmed through the military. Those who truly cared enough, shared the measurements that they had and made sure that they were right.

My final sentence quite obviously tainted my message, and I regret that. It is, in fact, hearsay, as evidenced by the "As far as I know" qualifier. My only evidence is chit-chat amongst the participants that most kilts arrived much too large for the 1stSgt.

Point four... if this response sounds a little irritated, then it should. The entire venture was done as a "thank you" to one of our Servicemen, and was never a contest of "who had the best kilt" or "who can get a picture of him in a kilt". It was done by (what's usually) a very close-knit, supportive and proud community.

I could blame a "bad week" but won't. I was irritated by an erroneous article, then frustrated that I could find no way to contact the author directly, compounded by the delay in the site getting the authentication e-mail to me. That all came out in a rather acidic post that I should have let sit for a time and then re-edited after I'd cooled off.

I hope everyone will accept my apologies. My sole intent was to point out that the 1stSgt's Survival kilt was a joint effort by a group of UK customers, not the company itself, and to defend Utilikilts pre-emptively against inference of "heartlessness" as it had justifiable reason not to send a kilt itself.