America's Best Security Blanket: Meet the Woobie

January 19, 2017 6:28 PM

"There have been some amazing military innovations over the years: freeze-dried food for MREs, jet aircraft, rail guns, and the soul-sucking website, Army Knowledge Online. But none of these compare to the simplest, most wonderful invention known to mankind: the poncho liner, affectionately known by all those who have felt its life-giving warmth as the 'woobie.'"

Related, previously: It's not cold outside; you just don't know how to dress.

posted by MonkeyToes (37 comments total)

Does it have a hole in it? If not, how do you wear it as a parka liner? Do you just wrap it around or over the shoulders and then a parka over the top?
posted by thecjm at 6:54 PM on January 19, 2017

Poncho, not parka.
posted by Sternmeyer at 6:58 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

According to answers to that very question on an Amazon page for a woobie, it's really a blanket that you use with a poncho to make into a sleeping bag rather than something that you wear while wearing a poncho as a poncho. I'm sure someone with actual Army experience will show up and explain this mystery to us all.
posted by GuyZero at 7:02 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm gonna say you'd be meant to wear it draped, thus, underneath the poncho, which is a horrible thin rubbery and smelly thing that does have a head hole/hood.

I have to admit though, I had never heard it called by the stupid but apparently universal name woobie til I joined the army. In my family we always called them "green tots" and for maybe the first time ever a piece of family argot is *less* cutesy-baby than what other people commonly use.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 7:03 PM on January 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Sold! I'll get one to use at home for the military-fetish-meets-hygge experience.

It's not cold outside; you just don't know how to dress.

I think I would enjoy winter more if I lived somewhere that had serious winters, because then I would invest in real parkas and woobies and long underwear and etc. In NYC, it rarely gets that bad so I muddle through every winter with not-very-warm clothes and wind up miserable.
posted by ejs at 7:07 PM on January 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Also I have always used them as blankets and never actually worn one, under the poncho or otherwise. There is, in fact, one on my bed now, another on the sofa, and one in the washer. We were using it as a tree skirt at Christmas and the cat peed all over it.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 7:08 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm gonna say you'd be meant to wear it draped, thus

That guy looks like the worst jedi ever
posted by ejs at 7:10 PM on January 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yes, there's a hole for your head to poke through, and a hood, very like a rain poncho. But instead of being all crinkly and cold and uncomfortable, it is soft and cozy and the most perfect nap blanket I've ever used. It's both very simple and very well designed, so that when the cat pees on it (!), into the washer it goes.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:18 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah poncho, not parka. I'd just returned from the related link and visions of parkas were dancing in my head
posted by thecjm at 7:19 PM on January 19, 2017

(Also, woobie-as-tree-skirt is genius, except for the pee bit.) My husband brought one home a while back and I flat out rejected it as one more piece of camo-covered stuff. My kid, on the other hand, stole it. She'd wander around the house wrapped in it, nap in the car in it, sleep under it at night, use it as an improvised fort--and now, having napped under it, blissfully, comfortably, and warmly, I am a convert, as are my house cats, who nest in it on cold days.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:31 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Isn't that what the kid in Mr. Mom called his security blanket?
posted by jonmc at 7:32 PM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Wow, I've had mine since my national guard days in the 80's. I've never heard it called a woobie though. Still I have to agree, best piece of eguipment EVAR.
posted by evilDoug at 7:40 PM on January 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Isn't that what the kid in Mr. Mom called his security blanket?

thats_the_joke.gif
posted by wenestvedt at 7:44 PM on January 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

(I actually really want one or two of these, but I am wary of buying online and ending up with a shitty knock-off. Does anyone have suggestions for finding a real one?)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:46 PM on January 19, 2017

Sold! I'll get one to use at home for the military-fetish-meets-hygge experience.

Pair it with a full set of NBC gear to be the comfiest person in the coming radioactive apocalypse!
posted by tobascodagama at 7:46 PM on January 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Yes, Mr. Mom, fellow 80's movie lover! My daughter and son both had a Woobie. Wish I could share the picture of her in her birthday suit before bath time trying to give Woobie a bath. /myheart
posted by beckybakeroo at 7:46 PM on January 19, 2017

Russian infantry were issued socks for the first time in 2013. Before then they had medieval foot-wraps.

People like to talk about the Russian Winter, as if New England and Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota didn't exist. Also North Dakota and Montana and Alaska, but not so many folks living and thriving there... tho lots of personnel training there! Much thicker population density than Siberia, too.

People like to talk about the harsh realities of desert warfare! Man, we have Death Valley and Phoenix. It wasn't the weather that lost us the war in Iraq, it was the stupid from up on high.

So, congrats, Spetsnaz on your new, warm socks!

We have the woobie. You now have a woobie gap.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:58 PM on January 19, 2017 [12 favorites]

Just how much warmth do they provide, and are they a good value if weight isn't a consideration? I see one listed for around 40 buck, and that's about the same as a surplus wool blanket. The wool won't shed water or dry quickly, though.
posted by Beholder at 8:02 PM on January 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wool and fiberfill both will keep you warm when wet - wool moreso.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:18 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

The woobie is the finest piece of equipment I carried in the Army. Normally the infantry motto is, "Travel light, freeze at night." Not with your woobie.

Ive been out for 16 years now, and it still goes camping with me.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:19 PM on January 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

(I actually really want one or two of these, but I am wary of buying online and ending up with a shitty knock-off. Does anyone have suggestions for finding a real one?)

Yes, and they're very easy to find. With the plethora of surplus liners available the odds of you getting stuck with a Chinese knockoff are pretty slim. Most surplus websites don't even bother with them. Here's how to spot the authentic ones:

Authentic U.S. Gov't Issue poncho liners will have a green DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) or DSA (Defense Supply Agency, if they were made pre-1978) tag sewn into one corner. This will include the DLA (or DSA) number, the NSN (National Stock Number), and the name of the company that made it, and care instructions.

These tags are easy to spot and hard to fake, especially on a piece of issue as common as a poncho liner. The DLA number will even include the year that particular liner was made. This one was made in 1990 - DLA100-90-C-4243 - and is a good price for an unissued liner. Unless you're looking for a specific vintage you should never pay more than $50. In fact, I bet you could find an issued liner in great shape for under $20 someplace online or at your local surplus store.

During Vietnam it was popular to have your poncho liner made into a jacket and these poncho jackets are now highly collectable. Now these are easy to fake, so be careful out there.
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 8:26 PM on January 19, 2017 [13 favorites]

So it's the military version of a towel from hitchhikers guide. That actually makes sense.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:43 PM on January 19, 2017 [22 favorites]

Oh! By woobie, you mean The Green Blanket!

My dad was in the army and we kept a succession of these at our house. You could usually find me and my brother down in the cold basement, wrapped up in our own Green Blanket, eating cereal and watching TV. We always kept one in the car, and they were the setting for many a picnic or roadside nap. Endlessly packable, always just warm enough. Wash 'em enough and they'd get silky soft.

The little strings were fantastic, too -- perfect for making a covered couch fortress, you could tie one end to the gumball machine and another to the lamp (until the lamp fell over, at least). I'd make a dress with wings out of one and call myself the Statue of Liberty.
posted by mochapickle at 10:05 PM on January 19, 2017 [8 favorites]

My dad always called them a woobie, but I thought he was joking? Honestly, until this day.
posted by mochapickle at 10:09 PM on January 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

See, I thought we were going to be talking about a completely different kind of woobie here.

I'm not disappointed. Just mildly surprised that something completely unrelated shares the name.
posted by Imperfect at 10:28 PM on January 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Woobie" sounds like a cutesy British term for breasts
posted by clockzero at 10:52 PM on January 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Also the Graf Jacket or Graf Parka (an Army raincoat with the greenie poncho as a liner) nearly waterproof and warmest wear in a foxhole or bunker.
posted by mfoight at 2:50 AM on January 20, 2017

See, I thought we were going to be talking about a completely different kind of woobie here.

I'm not disappointed. Just mildly surprised that something completely unrelated shares the name.

From that link: "For the curious, the fanspeak term "woobie" is ultimately derived from a word for a blanket, stuffed animal, or other soft object that a child keeps for its comforting properties (hence the name—some of these characters really could use a snuggling!)."
posted by briank at 5:32 AM on January 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

My wife took the leftover, pale blue fleece from making a baby blanket and sewed it into a pouch for my iPad. Almost everyone who looked at it called it an "iPad woobie"!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:33 AM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm gonna say you'd be meant to wear it draped, thus

So basically, like the old heavy wool cloak I inherited from an ex girlfriend. It came down to my ankles, and made a perfect blanket to curl up in.
posted by happyroach at 9:15 AM on January 20, 2017

Hell yes. To the max.

You don't wear it, you sleep with it. It feeds your dream.
posted by mule98J at 9:59 AM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

The poncho liner / "woobie" is a magnificent thing. (Even animals think so; it's the only item my cats will actually fight over to sleep on.)

It is not as warm as a wool blanket, but it's a lot lighter. Supposedly they weigh 24oz, although I've never actually bothered to weigh mine. And you can pack it down pretty tightly, especially if you use one of those stuff sacks with the compression straps. For the weight and bulk, it's probably one of the warmest things going besides a single-use "space blanket".

They do not, or at least recent-production ones don't, have a head hole. (And I have at least one RVN-era one that doesn't, either, but I can't speak to really early production.) They're not meant to be used under a poncho when you're wearing it like a poncho. The liner is basically a square blanket with ties at the edges, and the intent was you could take the poncho and use it as the outer layer of an improvised sleeping bag, with the liner inside to give it some warmth. Although AFAIK very few soldiers actually use it this way anymore. If you're a dismount infantryman sleeping outside, you probably have the (much better) Modular Sleep System, or some subset of it, which is made of Gor-Tex and in good condition basically lets you sleep in a puddle with reasonable comfort. Of course, the whole MSS weighs like 11 lbs (!!).

The poncho liner is great if you have a cot, though, or just for racking out inside a vehicle / aircraft / whatever, plus it makes a nice pillow. So if you anticipate not being out in the weather, which is not unreasonable in a lot of situations, it's a lot more general-purpose.

I never heard it called a "woobie" before maybe 2001/02, but it could have been more common in particular pockets of the military prior to then. But sometime around the Iraq invasion it became much more common, it seems to me. (Also, as slang names go, it's better than the nom de guerre for the MSS, the "fart sack".)

If you know someone who has access to a PX / AAFES store, I believe that the retail price for a poncho liner is about $17. I'd certainly never pay more than $25 for one, although they are darn nice. If they regularly sell for more than that on eBay, there are a lot of soldiers missing an opportunity for a nice side business in woobie arbitrage.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:29 AM on January 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Some soldiers stationed in Korea have them made into smoking jackets.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:55 PM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

The Norwegian Home Guard issued me a Jerven Fjellduken, which is similar, and a commercial product. Fjellduken allowed us to use the flimsiest of summer sleeping bags even in midwinter, and forego carrying a sleeping bag at all during summer patrols. As you can see from the picture on the linked page, if you get the mountain camo variant, you can basically disappear in much of Norway's terrain. It's the best thing ever for someone doing recon patrols and OPs.

So I wished for one for my birtday, and got it, even though they are expensive. But discovered quickly that I need to get five of them to ever have a chance to use on myself. Wife and kids tend to commandeer them, and I'm stuck having to tough it out while they are snug and cozy.

For actual-real-life survival needs, as opposed to army-wannaby or waiting-for-the-apocalypse needs you can also get them in blaze orange. I think all of them come with a smaller blaze orange flag stashed inside. Lots of stories of Red Cross or other SAR personell being caught out in blizzards and surviving handily until the storm dies down, and then a rescue chopper comes along and spot the orange dots out on the mountainside.
posted by Harald74 at 11:35 PM on January 20, 2017 [5 favorites]

WOOBIE. Our house has three. It's my preferred couch blanket in the winter. My husband and children and I fight over them. I also have a parka liner designed for one of my military coats made from the same material. One is going in our car kit soon just because. it traps warmth very well but doesn't make me feel like I'm going to suffocate. It's fantastic and everyone should have one.
posted by Night_owl at 11:59 AM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Actually, it just occurred to me that it would be a good gift for someone wanting to help the homeless in a place that gets cold. Along with a small stuff sack?
posted by Night_owl at 12:00 PM on January 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

Considering the number of homeless veterans, they might appreciate the familiarity of one of these!
posted by wenestvedt at 4:17 PM on January 21, 2017