I am unqualified to comment on the whole nature of fielding a properly equipped army.
Something we liked about Reagan was the new stuff, no more WWII helmets, or Korean War threadbare down sleeping bags that if they got wet were nothing but a wet sheet, no more field food that had been in storage for decades, Gore-Tex and other gear that had been available for years to civilians started being issued, new radios.
The Vietnam era Army and Marines had lousy, primitive and very old personal gear.