Saluting the Women and Men Who Served in Uniform

Wednesday, November 11, 2026, is Veterans Day, a federal holiday in the United States. National, state, and local government offices will be closed in commemoration. Most businesses will be open.

All this week we celebrate Veterans Day by honoring those who protected us while serving in uniform. The American clothing and textile industries also served, by supplying those uniforms, as well as footwear, parachutes, and other articles made in America. The six New England states did their part in outfitting our warfighters.

Here's a list of Department of War clothing and textile awarded to New England manufacturers.

• Brand & Oppenheimer Co., Portsmouth, R.I., over $700,000 for parachute cloth (two contracts).
• Elegant Stitches Inc., Pittsfield, Mass., $36 million contract for uniform dress shirts.
• Kennedy Inc., North Kingston, R.I. $33,000 for caps.
• Murdock Webbing, Central Falls, R.I. over $9 million for webbing (two contracts).
• New Balance, Boston, Mass. $59 million for athletic shoes.
• Sweet Mass Productions, Attleboro, Mass, $34,000 for service ribbons.

In the summer of 1941, as World War II was devastating Europe and Asia, America watched, and hoped. that it would not be a repeat of World War I, when we were pulled into a foreign war. Hoping is one thing, planning is another. We could not have anticipated that by December we would be forced into the global conflict, but wise heads in Washington did see that it was a question of when, not if, young American men (practically still boys) would be called upon to defend Democracy and risk life and limb in a foreign conflict that we neither initiated nor sought. Recognizing the looming threat, the U.S. took a sober look at what we would need to fight the war when it came to us. The conclusion was that we needed a reliable domestic source of steel, and textiles.

Congress passed an act to require domestic U.S. sourcing of uniforms. Since then, the requirement for domestic sourcing of textiles for the Department of Defense has been renewed several times and, finally, made a permanent part of U.S. law, known as the "Berry Amendment" for the member of congress who proposed it, in its current form.

Prior to the presidency of Donald J. Trump, U.S. trade policy incentivized brands and retailers to close U.S. textile facilities and relocate offshore, mostly to China. Leaving the few domestic producers of vital military textiles with few, if any, commercial customers. A law requiring U.S. textiles in tents and uniforms is of no value if there is no remaining U.S. textile industry to supply our armed services. And we certainly do not want to fall into a situation where we are dependent on a foreign nation -- a potential foe -- as the source of military clothing and tents.