Posted on May 28, 2015
Why so many changes to the military uniform over the past 8 years or so? When I was in, it was BDUs and DCUs.
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Uniforms
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Some thoughts on the numerous military uniform changes over the last 8 years:
- DoD and DA became fiscally indisciplined during GWOT because Congress allowed money to be thrown at the problem rather than disciplined thought.
- Civilian leadership (DoD, Secretaries of the Services) allowed military leadership to reverse the "joint" trend the nation had been on and go a service route vice a joint route in terms of uniforms.
- Some services (USMC) allowed pride and ownership (this is a Marine uniform) to stand in the way of what was best for the nation fiscally and from a camouflage perspective.
- Army leadership made a series of dumb decisions (beret, ACU) for a variety of reasons that had more to do with cosmetics and symbolism than it had to do with combat effectiveness.
- DoD and DA became fiscally indisciplined during GWOT because Congress allowed money to be thrown at the problem rather than disciplined thought.
- Civilian leadership (DoD, Secretaries of the Services) allowed military leadership to reverse the "joint" trend the nation had been on and go a service route vice a joint route in terms of uniforms.
- Some services (USMC) allowed pride and ownership (this is a Marine uniform) to stand in the way of what was best for the nation fiscally and from a camouflage perspective.
- Army leadership made a series of dumb decisions (beret, ACU) for a variety of reasons that had more to do with cosmetics and symbolism than it had to do with combat effectiveness.
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SGM Dean Motoyama
Sir, I so much appreciate your candor and insightfulness. It's what I suspected, but nice to hear it from a full Colonel. I joined the Army in 1980 and retired in early 2008. Went through three different uniforms - plain OD green (just like the ones worn in Stripes - in fact, I was went to BCT at Ft Know the same year they filmed it), BDU and even wore the ACU for about a year or so before retiring. Now my youngest is in ROTC and already has to buy another set of uniform (OCP). At least when we went from plain OD green to BDU's - you could still use the same web nametapes. Somebody's getting rich.
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I always noticed that uniform changes (at least for the Air Force) seemed to come in conjunction with other more substantive changes (draw downs, Regulations to Instructions, MAJCOM structure, expeditionary force, etc). Sort of waving your right hand in someones face, so they won't notice that the left hand is picking their pocket. It also allows the DoD to spread $$ into numerous congressional districts and have leverage for increasing budgets.
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I often wonder this same thing. As much as I hate going the "conspiracy theory" route, I honestly can't help but think of the old adage, follow the money.
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