How did you feel when you heard of the Black beret of our ranger brothers being taken away and replaced with tan

- The Rangers having to switch from black beret to tan beret was a symptom, not the illness.
- The illness was the then CSA's decision for all Soldiers to wear the black beret in order to "symbolize our desire to transform". Symbolism can be tangentially helpful but rarely direct helpful. A better way to "symbolize our desire to transform" would have been to get off our collective ass and transform. We are Soldiers, not politicians. Soldiers measure desire by results. Politicians generally do not even measure desire, they talk about it at best.
- Placing the beret onto every Soldier was ill conceived for several reasons. Elite Soldiers look good in a beret while the average Soldier does not (height/weight, high/tight haircut, discipline to shave and mold the beret properly, etc). Hats and caps are functional and protect from rain/sun while the beret does not. Hat/cap emplacement is a one handed operation while beret emplacement is a two hand operation. Hats/caps do not require a lot of preparation or maintenance while berets do.
- Finally, the implementation of the decision was flawed at best. We had to rely upon Chinese manufactorers to make the berets that suddenly everyone needed to wear.

I did not like it at all SPC Mark Beard . Especially saying that since they had not worn it for more than 25 years it was not a tradition yet. Weak excuse. It is all good though because I believe the Tan suits them better. It looks even more BADASS! IMO of course.

It was one of those crazy Political things where someone who felt a need to make their mark before leaving their position.

This new generation of everyone gets a trophy gives a false sense of success.

Those that earned their Beret know who they are. A person who went above and beyond the scope of the average Soldier. Someone who took it upon themselves to achieve something more.

Great question. Like SFC John Gates stated, I too believe it was a political move but for what reasons I just don't understand. Prior to this change, I had spent the previous 10+ years serving in two different SF Groups where we, as support personnel, wore the maroon beret and the SF guys wore the well known green beret. I had always been honored and proud to wear a beret and was a bit excited to be able to still wear one upon PCSing to Fort Riley. The excitement was minor though in comparison to my disgust that the new "headgear" was going to be the black beret, which had always been a symbol of the Rangers. Since the Rangers retained the beret as headgear, it didn't make any sense to change their color to tan and give the black one to the rest of the Army. It would have been better for the Rangers to retain the black beret and the rest of the Army go to the tan beret.