As one might surmise from the military mannequins in Federal Army & Navy Surplus’ front windows, it’s a great place to shop if you’re looking to dress up for Halloween as a soldier. But it’s mainly a place for hard-core apparel and accessories meant to withstand harsh elements. If you receive a tip that a potentially grave disaster will strike tomorrow, this is where you’d want to shop today.

Employee Marshall Hendricks (left) discusses a purchase order with co-owner Jack Schaloum at the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

Don’t expect to find guns, ammo and fishing gear here, however; this isn’t Warshal’s, the late, great downtown sporting goods store that reminded Seattleites of their rugged roots. (Hotel 1000 — not so rugged — has risen in its stead at 1st and Madison.) Federal Army & Navy Surplus is, paradoxically, a rather peaceful place. Back when the Vietnam War was a growing concern, the store’s biggest customers were protesters, not soldiers.

“In the ’70s, at the height of America’s discontent with the military, military wear (among protesters) was in style,” says Steve Hall, a member of Friends of Historic Belltown. “It’s an ironic way of wearing military and not being militaristic.”

Hall has been a customer of Federal Army & Navy Surplus since he worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the ’80s. He would go there every May to purchase field supplies or a fresh pair of wool pants left over from the Korean War, and has continued to pop in frequently to see what sort of surprises sibling co-owners Jack and Henry Schaloum might have in stock.

“Recently, they had all these snowshoes,” Hall recalls. “They had a salesman who sold them samples, and they’d sell them to you. It’s quite a contrast with Patagonia.”

At the surplus store, you can buy a refueling device that looks like a missile, several flavors of Department of Defense-issued M.R.Es (meals, ready-to-eat), a camouflage “Ghillie Suit” that resembles Chewbacca after a night spent sleeping on sticks and leaves, and Rite in the Rain notebooks filled with waterproof paper.

Jack Schaloum’s son, a collegiate golfer, finds the last of those items — made in Tacoma and “defying Mother Nature since 1916” — to be a particularly useful tool during drizzly practice rounds.

Jack and Henry’s parents were Holocaust survivors who came to Seattle in 1951. Izak Schaloum ran a dry-cleaning business near where Warshal’s used to be, eventually purchasing a sporting goods store across the street that dabbled in military surplus. It was here where Jack says Izak “saw a niche” and focused on surplus, building the enterprise that opened to a point where it outgrew its original 1955 digs.