Over the years, the National Defence Academy has become an iconic Military Academy, attracting not only the best young men from all over the country but also from friendly foreign countries. National Defence Academy has grown in grace and grandeur over its seven decades of glorious existence. The ‘Leaders of the men’ have graduated from its doors, proving their worth and demonstrating the essence of inter-service camaraderie and joint manship, thereby confirming the faith and vision of its founding fathers.
Many candidates aspire to join the NDA, they see the dream of living those 3 years in the academy with all kinds of adventures, activities, and traditions. Many don’t know that there are 26 different types of uniforms that a cadet will earn after he joins the NDA. In this article, we will look at the different types of uniforms an NDA cadet wears.
26 Different NDA Uniforms
Ceremonial Summer 
Ceremonial Drill Order Summer 
Ceremonial Drill Order Winter 
Ceremonial Games Summer 
Ceremonial Games Winter 
Combat Dress Summer 
Combat Dress Winter 
Drill Order Summer 
Equitation Summer 
Equitation Winter 
Flying Training 
FSMO Scale A 
FSMO Scale B 
Games Dress Summer 
Games Dress Winter 
Games Rig Dress Order 
Mess Dress Semi Formal Summer 
Mufti Dress Summer 
Mufti Dress Winter 
Physical Training Summer 
Physical Training Winter 
Walking Out Summer 
Walking Out Winter 
Winter Ceremonial 
Working Dress Summer 
Working Dress Winter
NDA Uniforms of Cadets in Brief
| NDA Dress | Details |
| Khaki Dress | It comes in a khaki shirt and shorts. This is the typical working rig. It is worn to school and other mundane activities. The Drill Order is formed when drill shoes are used. |
| Games Rig | It consists of a white T-shirt and shorts. Instead of a T-shirt, the PT rig will wear a white vest. |
| Riding Rig | It comes with breeches and riding shoes, as well as a white t-shirt on top. It’s not a pleasant rig to be in if the cadet and the horses have a bad relationship. |
| Blue Patrol | It includes the most popular rig among cadets. It makes one look good, but it takes a lot of effort to prepare and wear. Cadets lose their fingerprints while polishing the buttons with Brasso to make them shine sufficiently. When 6th term cadets graduate, they pass down the buttons; some have been in circulation for generations and are likely more than twenty-five years old. New buttons are difficult to shine to the required level of lustre, whereas old ones have been polished so many times that the insignia has lost all detail and would require only a sliver of Brasso to look like a golden mirror. |
| White Patrol | It includes the white patrol, which is the summer equivalent of the blue patrol. It does not have the same appearance as the blue patrol. The level of difficulty in preparing the dress remains the same. |
| Dress 2B | It consists of a white shirt, grey slacks, a cummerbund, and a side cap. It is worn on summer guest dinner nights. |
| Walking Outs | It consists of a khaki dress with a trouser rather than shorts. Almost every day, it is worn during the study period and at dinner. It is also worn when visiting army establishments outside of the NDA on official business. |
| Muftis | It consists of blue shirts, grey slacks, and a maroon NDA tie. With their close-cropped hair and Mufti rig, the poor sods stand out in the crowd. |
Furthermore, almost all NDA uniforms can be mixed and matched to create different rigs. As an example: The Games Rig, when combined with drill shoes and a beret, creates the cool-sounding GRDO (that stands for a staid Games Rig Drill Order), which is probably the single most despised rig in the NDA as it is worn for 2 hours of unofficial drill practice in the afternoon straight after lunch by junior term cadets.
Maintenance of NDA Dress
Preparing and maintaining all of these NDA dresses is a massive undertaking. It takes a few terms to understand and learn how to polish one’s shoes, how much one’s brass buttons should shine in an NDA dress, how to shape one’s beret, how to iron one’s shorts and trousers to make the pleats look razor-sharp (and also how to do it without ironing), and so on.
Every morning, the third-term cadets carefully dress the first and second-term cadets, and then they line up in front of the nearest fourth-term cadet’s room, where they are inspected and then taken to the nearest fifth-term cadet, and finally to the sixth-term appointment cadet. They will use an electron microscope to inspect the juniors, and if any errors are discovered at any level, everyone down the chain will be punished.
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I want to be an NDA officer