A quick followup to our earlier article about Soldier camouflage: the Army has posted an article to their website outlining some of the goals of the evaluation and a series of photos showing the different patterns. It’s particularly interesting, since it not only looks to the future of the ACU but gives some information on its developmental history as well.
I truly believe that PEO Soldier continues to usurp our Soldiers adamant pleading for a new and improved combat uniform. I do not know if it is as a result of the billions of dollars that has already been spent in the manufacturing and fielding of the current uniform or simply our leadership not wanting to budge in an effort to be different from our sister services. However, hundreds of thousands of our Soldiers have identified many faults ranging from an ineffective camouflage pattern to problems with the Velcro. Not to mention the overall design with an up collar that is rarely ever used.
There is a viable solution to this issue, which is to seek out the Marines leadership to gain their approval to remove their patent from their MARPAT going back to all American Forces wearing the same combat uniforms.
I have identified the known problems, recommended a viable solution and now request for you to please explain the methodology in placing our Armed Forces into different combat uniforms? Especially considering the joint operations we now participate in more than ever before.
Thank you!
Very Respectfully,
SFC Anderson
I am really curious as to when this command is going to crawl out from beneath the rock they’re hiding under and fess up to having the ACU all wrong. The projected date to make some sort of declaration as to what course of action would be taken in the camo debacle is now overdue and coincedently, the PEO Soldier website is down. Huh, I wonder if there’s some more shady stuff getting ready to go down in the biggest fleecing office of the US Army? Regardless of what policy or short-sighted implementation this office comes out with, the guys who really care about survival and combat effectiveness will do what they must to obtain quality, life-saving equipment; even if it comes from their own pocket. The truth is big Army has never provided “the best for the best”. More accurately it has been “the affordable for the willing”. As I’m sure you all in the PEO don’t really have your fingers to the pulse of the Army, I’ll tell you that soldiers being repeatedly deployed, stop-lossed, divorced and unappreciated at home are a bit fired up about their own acquisitions office not getting stuff even remotely right. Go ahead and shelve the un-needed projects like the T-11, X-25 and any other fancy doo-hickey that wouldn’t see more use than a HK416, or multicam uniform that actually helps the Infantryman on the ground. Stop dreaming up costly garbage and ask the guys fighting what they want…I promise you’ll get an earful.