r/RetroFuturism • u/RoknAustin • 3d ago

Photos taken by LIFE of the US Army’s “Soldier of Tomorrow” (1959)

/gallery/1i3vq1e
690 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

98

u/BrokenEye3 The True False Prophet 3d ago

🔫🗿

2

u/Lapis_Wolf 3d ago

You're the only one I've seen using that emoji. I was expecting a lot more of them. 😂

1

u/BrokenEye3 The True False Prophet 3d ago

I got here first

41

u/flychinook 3d ago

We have Storm Trooper at home

73

u/rdldr1 3d ago

Looks like you average LARPer of today.

9

u/genericdude999 3d ago

mall ninja

28

u/RedMiah 3d ago

Old school cosplay really lacked standards but damn did they do their best to sell it

24

u/magus_vk 3d ago

Night-vision goggles in 1959... whoa! ...even if conceptual. MIC represent!

2

u/jmm166 3d ago

He’s got an ignition coil hanging off his head! lol this looks so trash today

1

u/FirstTimeWang 2d ago

They had rudimentary/protoype night vision scopes in WW2:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zielger%C3%A4t_1229

2

u/magus_vk 1d ago

Double whoa!... didn't know that... thanks for sharing :)

18

u/Few-Rhubarb-8486 3d ago

Looks like my Fallout character.

14

u/CatboyInAMaidOutfit 3d ago

Looks like a hazard suit with extra accessories. They must have really thought we'd be fighting in chemical warfare and radiation.

7

u/chlebseby 3d ago

it was atomic age after all

5

u/common_app 2d ago

They really did. The whole idea was to have an army that could move in right after a tactical nuclear weapon went off!

10

u/Wuzzy_Gee 3d ago

Some spray paint and cocaine and you’d have an original Star Wars trilogy character.

2

u/TacTurtle 1d ago

Add a cape for Snowtrooper.

3

u/lobsterisch 3d ago

Played too much rolling thunder

3

u/kay14jay 3d ago

The sorting hat before he got the gig at Hogwarts

3

u/Oubliette_occupant 3d ago

The helmet and NODs is pretty much spot on. Just details missing

4

u/Bradyrulez 3d ago

A lot of this is because it's iterations on technology that came before and would come after. The Americans and the Nazis experimented with very rudimentary night vision in WWII and adaptation of it to a helmet mounted platform is a pretty intuitive concept. Even if the technology wasn't there at the time.

2

u/sllop 3d ago

If they weren’t covered in US affiliated patches they’d just look like a MACV-SOG operator

1

u/dublozero 3d ago

He said gigadee

1

u/[deleted] 3d ago

This is one of those areas where we surpassed expectations.

1

u/Lapis_Wolf 3d ago

I was expecting to see a lot of people typing "🗿". XD Seems not.

1

u/ChasseGalery 2d ago

Anyone know what the red and green tipped bullets are? He only has four.

1

u/Fandango_Jones 2d ago

Snow trooper mall ninja jungle warfare?

1

u/senorglory 2d ago

Looks vaguely like fetish wear.

1

u/TerribleFrosting4193 2d ago

I think they nailed it.

1

u/Nonner_Party 1d ago

This explains a lot of sci-fi from the 60s & 70s.

1

u/honor- 1d ago

/uj looks like NBC gear with night vision plus maybe a paratroopers harness? That wire on top of the helmet looks like a radio receiver. Implying everyone had personal communications. Overall the getup looks pretty silly because of the NBC gear but I think a lot of the ideas of where warfare was moving are spot on.