I’ve been watching an ongoing US Army/USAF/US Navy uniform debate thread on another board for months.
I think that what I’ve come to understand is this:
1. The US Army ACU is unsatisfactory camo unless you’re trying to hide in a greasy alley behind a liquor store on the bad side of town next behind the dimpsty dumpster.
2. The US Army’s quest to look ‘elite’ will never be found in velcroing Boy Scout merit badges onto your baggy-assed Army ACUs and topping it off with a colored French hat. That uniform makes every soldier look just like how pregnant female US Marines look in the sixth month of their pregnancy just before being shitcanned out of the ‘Corps.
3. The US Navy’s decision to make sailors dress up like pretend Marines is an outrage. Enlisted sailors ought to wear the classic Crackerjack uniform until they become CPOs. The current Navy camo uniform must be intentionally designed so that if someone falls overboard, they’ll never be located by searchlight even if they’re only 30 yards off the fantail. Whoever thought up the US Navy blue camo uniform ought to be cashiered out of the Navy on principle.
4. The USAF, I don’t know what they’re doing. At all. One day they’re in obsolete desert camo, another day in weird Tigerstripe camp that matches nothing at all, including tigers, and they can mix and match and even wear the USAF blue jacket over their tigerstripe camp. Come to think of it, does the USAF even NEED camo uniforms? Personally maybe bright reflective orange stripes are in order so their enlisted flightline personnel don’t get accidentally run over by a baggage carrier truck thing like I see at airports.
5. No matter how earnestly the Pentagon plays dress-up with the American military, they’re just not going to get everyone to look like Marines unless they ARE Marines. Period.
6. Just stop goofing around with every branch of the service getting to design their own uniform and adopt one that does it all ... You know, like we somehow managed to get by with doing from 1939 through 2001.
The most popular (and comfortable) of all Army caps was the M-1951 Field Cap. It was replaced by a rather ugly looking flat top cap which Fidel Castro adopted. After that came a baseball cap which was disliked. They try and try but it still remains that the M-1951 Field Cap was ideal.