Quoting: Anticheese
It's more like the ridiculousness of it..Super tough military man in full kit asking for a sub sandwich. It's not like they are going to say no..It's more like how out of place he would be.
"Out of place" in present-day Western civilization doesn't necessarily equal "Out of place" in GearHead's post-apocalyptic culture.
One of the big reasons someone with top-of-the-line military equipment is out-of-place today is that most nations do not allow civilians to own such things -- not even the "Right to Bear Arms" United States. Meanwhile in FedTer a freshly landed immigrant from a cold-war opponent (AOL) can buy military gear with cash for immediate delivery. Even if there is someone eager to testify that he's still working for AOL (I'm talking about that annoying yahoo in a Neko that you sometimes draw as the first XRAN component for an AOL defector).
And in Gearhead's setting one is far more likely to need such weapons in daily life.
Also, I think this is a simplification. Realistically, a player in Gearhead's setting would change clothes a lot. Aside from laundry and armor repair, he'd need to change between street clothes, his melee mission armor, and his pilot suit (which would be optimized to protect against blunt injury and fire, instead of bullets). But changing clothes all the time would be very boring, and GearHead's engine doesn't support fast swapping between different equipment "presets". So to make it easier for us, the game only tracks the player's melee-mission loadout.
