In Iran, soldiers don’t get the same respect as they do in America. Good job they have the best uniforms then, says one dual national who has narrowly escaped the draft

Despite the fact that I was born in the US, I am a dual national and technically obliged to complete the compulsory military service. They allow me to visit the country for three months every year without having to enlist, but if I stay even one extra day I will not be allowed to leave until I complete 21 months’ service.

I recently had an experience that forced me – if only briefly – to come to terms with the idea of joining the military. I was arrested for a customs violation at the Iranian border two days before my deadline and was told I would have to spend anywhere between 10 days and five months in jail. I responded that I couldn’t stay in Iran that long, because if I stayed any longer I’d be obliged to join the army. One of the border guards told me not to worry, that the army would be good for me, that it would improve my Farsi.

As I sat in the processing area of the local courthouse, reading profanities carved into the benches and contemplating my future as a foot soldier of the Islamic republic, I looked over at three young soldiers guarding a prisoner handcuffed to a bench. They were wearing solid olive green uniforms. The pants were tightly tapered, with grey stripes down the sides and cinched at the calves where they were tucked into black high-top leather boots. Their shirts were tucked neatly into waistbands with bright yellow epaulettes on the shoulders and caps dipped low over their faces.

The uniforms were undeniably flattering, and the soldiers looked pretty cool leaning against the courthouse walls, arms and ankles crossed. They joked and laughed among themselves as their prisoner stared forlornly into space. I thought about what it would be like to serve: it would probably be boring, and it definitely wouldn’t pay well, but at least I’d get to wear a cool uniform.

In my opinion, the Iranian military has the most stylish uniforms in the world. They come in a dizzying array of colours and prints.

There are at least three different desert camouflage prints, each to distinguish between the regular army, the Revolutionary Guards, and the tarabaris who repair military cars and trucks. Each has a slightly different colour palette and blotch density.

There’s an arctic blue camo for the air force, and a green and brown forest camo with splotches of electric blue for the Air Defence Force, which operates anti-aircraft guns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the Iranian air force talk to each other while attending an Eid al-Adha prayer ceremony in Tehran. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

There’s a pixelated grey green with red anchors for the navy, a brown and olive green for the dejban or military police, a solid black for riot police, a pale mint green for the diplomatic police, and a dark green - almost black - for the gasht-e ershad or morality police.

There’s also a slate grey, a black and white, a beige, a beige on beige, a beige on brown, a beige on green, and an eggshell white with perfectly matching beret, balaclava and rifle cover that is apparently reserved for military parades and other ceremonial occasions.

All are adorned to taste with various badges, insignias, ranks, epaulettes, spats and aiguillettes. Everyone though, even the high-ranking lifers, wears a baseball cap with a coat of arms on the crown.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari monitors with binoculars during a war game in the Hormuz area of southern Iran. Photograph: Fars News / Reuters/Reuters

I resolved early on that I must get hold of one of these uniforms. I asked around among former Iranian soldiers, offering at first to buy unwanted uniforms. I quickly found out that it’s quite easy to buy - brand new - just about any military uniform for less than 500,000 rials (£11, $17.00)

In southern Tehran, past the Imam Ali military university, the roundabout named after Louie Pasteur, and rows of motorcycle repair shops, is the neighbourhood of Gomrok. Named after the Iranian word for customs, Gomrok is a one-stop-shop for all your military regalia needs.

The streets around Razi Square are decked in camouflage, and tightly packed with open store fronts - each about half the size of a shipping container - overflowing with military uniforms in every conceivable colour and style, in any size, cut, or configuration you can imagine.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Military market in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Tehran Bureau

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gomrok in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Tehran Bureau

At each shop proprietors sit out front, sipping tea, ready to haggle over the price of a sergeant rank patch. In the back, sewing machines whirr as customers are measured and fitted. You can buy jackets, hats, rucksacks, knives, canteens, and survival gear. There are stacks of military caps, rows of combat boots, mannequins done up in various militant costumes with fingerless gloves, balaclavas, and tipped berets. There are fire-fighter uniforms, police uniforms, sanitation uniforms, mountain rescue uniforms.

In addition to Iranian uniforms, most militaries are represented. There are British RAF uniforms, German army uniforms, Chinese People’s Liberation Army uniforms, even Palestinian keffiyehs and official-looking FBI garb. There are whole sections of American military uniforms, which some shops sell fresh off the assembly line, but at least one guy was selling a lone USMC uniform with the name Garcia still embroidered on it.

At one shop I asked the proprietor how he came by American military uniforms. “We make them ourselves,” he said, showing off the stitching and the sturdy fabric. “Sometimes we take them to Russia and sell them, they’re very popular there.”

In one shop I tried on an Iranian Air Defence Force uniform. The fit was good, but the craftsmanship was shoddy, with crooked stitches and loose threads hanging off everything. He wanted to charge me extra to put on the insignia patches but I talked him down to 450,000 rials (£8.30, $13.00 USD) for jacket and trousers, including patches.

He showed me a glass case full of patches for every department, division, and rank in the Iranian armed forces. There was the eagle and crossed swords of the ground troops, and the navy’s anchor inside a rope circle. I even saw the Revolutionary Guard Corps with the distinctive fist gripping a machine gun.

The shopkeeper pulled out one for the Air Defence Force with the silhouette of a fighter jet on a radar field, flanked by two missiles set inside golden laurels. He sat down at a rickety sewing machine tucked in the back between mountainous stacks of cargo trousers and sewed the patches in place.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of the Iranian police special forces perform during a military parade in Tehran. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

Looking around I noticed a section of military uniforms for small children. I asked him if he sold a lot of those. “We sell more kid’s stuff than adult stuff,” he said. “The kids see the soldiers on TV and then they start asking their parents for uniforms.”

Another shopkeeper told me most of his business comes from teenagers and young people. “They have parties where everyone dresses up as soldiers,” he said. “They also come here for custom uniforms. I’ve even had people come in and ask for mullah outfits, but you have to go to Qom for that.”

Military service is compulsory in Iran, but many conscripts are forced to buy their own boots and uniforms. One soldier told me that for nearly two years of service, the government provides only one uniform, and that they are not fastidious about fit. “I’m a size 8 and they gave me a 12,” he explained, as a tailor measured his inseam, “so I just threw it away.”

Another solider told me he was in the psychological operations division. Intrigued, I asked him what he did.

“We do nothing,” he said. “It’s a waste of time. If it were useful I wouldn’t mind, but it’s total bullshit.” When pressed all he would say is that he’s doing research on Viber, an Israeli instant messaging app popular among Iranians.

“All the files say ‘Top Secret’. I could go to jail if I showed anyone, but it’s all bullshit, there’s nothing in them.”

All eligible Iranian men are required to do 21 months of military service in one of the three branches of the military: the police, the Revolutionary Guard, or the army. If you miss a day for any reason, they add on three. I’m told that superiors often add on days for a whole host of reasons, ranging from unsatisfactory job performance to just being in a bad mood. Entry-level soldiers are paid 800,000-1,000,000 rials a month (£17-21.50, $27.00 - $34.00). I’m told it’s not even enough to cover travelling home when on leave.

In America, there’s a reverence for soldiers. One is constantly reminded of their courage, their sacrifice. Soldiers have an implied halo of selflessness, they move with a dignified bearing. Flight attendants upgrade uniformed soldiers to first class, restaurants offer veteran discounts, strangers shake their hands and say: “Thank you for your service.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iranian Army soldiers march during a military ceremony in Tehran on 18 April 2010, marking the annual National Army Day. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

In Iran every able-bodied male between the ages of 18-35 who isn’t rich or crafty enough to get out of it serves in the army at some point. It’s treated not as a noble calling, but as an annoyance.

“A lot of people get exemptions from the military service,” said one soldier I met at Gomrok. “Some people pay doctors to say they have epilepsy or something. If you can afford it it’s worth it, because otherwise you have to give up two years of the best time of your life.”

“I hate it,” said another soldier, shopping for new boots. He said he was in the air force so I asked him if he got to fly planes. He laughed. “I haven’t even seen any planes,” he said. “I’ve only been able to fire a gun twice.”

There is a nonchalance about military service here verging on open resentment. You see a lot of soldiers in Tehran, but they are rarely armed and very few of them appear to be operating in any official capacity. Occasionally you’ll see a police officer in ceremonial regalia looking bored at a large roundabout, or some mint-green diplomatic police dozing in a security box in front of an embassy. For the most part though, I see soldiers riding the metro, queuing to buy ice cream, or cavorting in packs through popular night life spots. They look like other Tehranis, except for the uniform.

When I visited the historic caravanserai in Meybod or the Karim Khan Castle in Shiraz, there were quite a few uniformed soldiers there going tourist: reading informational plaques, taking pictures in front of historical buildings, buying refreshments from concession stands. One evening I was walking through Laleh Park in Tehran talking in English to a friend when four soldiers walked by - whether they were on patrol or out on the town I couldn’t honestly say. One of them, hearing our khareji speak (foreigner or literally ‘those who went out’), shouted “Oh, fuck me!” with a big smile. It seemed like that was one of the few English phrases he knew.

With military service normalised to the point of inanity, soldiers don’t seem to bother taking it seriously, and people don’t seem to afford them extraordinary reverence. In Iran people don’t say “Thank you for your service”, they don’t give up their seats to soldiers on the metro. Camouflage has just become part of the scenery.

In my time in Iran I’ve met exactly one person who said he valued his military experience: a former soldier in the Revolutionary Guard who currently works for a Russian petroleum company developing natural gas in the Persian Gulf.

“When I got to the army, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I thought maybe I would study engineering or something,” he said. “In the army I made connections, I learned about the industry, and I found my career. It was the best thing I could have done.”

Back at the courthouse, after hours of pleading with the judge to let me off with a warning, a man in a bright orange linen suit sauntered into the judge’s office and asked about the details of my case. The judge explained the basic outline, the man in the orange suit chuckled.

“Chizi nist,” he said (it’s nothing). He told the judge he should let me go, and then he sauntered out of the room as casually as he had come in. I’m not sure who the man in the orange suit was, but after he left the judge tore up the paper work he’d been filling out and quickly wrote a new report. Then he gave me back my passport and told me I was free to go.

I was escorted by one of the three soldiers to a nearby bus station, giving me the chance for one last look at his superbly stylish uniform. I was of course relieved that I wouldn’t be enlisting any time soon, but I also couldn’t quite shake the image of myself in one of those get-ups.

In Gomrok I ended up buying an Air Defence Force uniform for myself, and a ground forces uniform and navy cap to take back to America as presents for friends. In all, I spent about £20/$30.00 USD, not including the hot dog I ate on my way back to the metro.

I don’t wear the uniform when I’m in Iran. I’m not sure if it’s technically illegal for a civilian to walk around in a military regalia - who knows what’s technically illegal in Iran - but it just seems like I’d be tempting fate.

I do sometimes wear the jacket in New York, riding around on the subway that’s so similar to the Tehran metro, wearing the colours of the axis of evil. I sometimes hope someone will thank me for my service before seeing the Arabic lettering just so I can witness the moment of realisation as it comes over their face.