militaryhistory

The U.S. Army Soldier sometimes becomes very perplexed, as uniforms changes seem to be something that occurs once every few years, and in some cases every couple of years, depending upon operations. The most recent examples of this, is the transition between the desert pattern camo to ACU’s (Army Combat Uniform) or whats refered to as the digital issue. But the changes have been more extensive if you look a short twenty five years into the past as the army transitioned out of the Viet Nam era. In fact the army has worn at least four different uniforms since that time.

The transition went fro Viet Nam fatigue greens to Forest pattern camo BDU (Battle Dress Uniform), to desert camo and now to ACU. The ACU uniform pattern was in fact designed to conceal soldiers from modrn electronic detection gear (infra red) versus camoflauging the soldier. In fact the digital issue has a tendency to gray out very quickl when it becomes soiled.

The ACU uniform was also designed with utility use in mind. It has more pockets that many previous uniforms combined. And these pockets are sealed by using velcro which is a downside of the uniform, due to the fact that velcro tends to be very noisey when opened or brushed against another object, including other soldiers velcro who may be in close quarters with the wearer.