Today, Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston announced the official bullet to lay down the Green Class A Service Uniform. The Army is going to adopt the Dress Blue Uniform as the new "Army Service Uniform." The Chief of Staff GEN Shoomaker, says "World-Class soldiers need a World-Class uniform."

Can't say I agree with it, but I'm glad I already own Blues. Those monsters are expensive.

Well, the military of today (or the Army and Air Force at least) are all about streamlining and cost-effectiveness, which is the main reason given for the uniform change. The Army also said the new service uniforms that will be produced will be of a different (less expensive?) fabric and material.

They didn't cite this as a reason for change, but I like the idea of the Army displaying it's heritage. It has had the dark blue service uniform since the 1830's, and despite the 20th century trend of using earth tones in uniforms, I think the blue service uniform has a very "American" feel to it not only with the colors but the Civil War-esque officer shoulder insignia and the yellow stripe along the pant leg.

The Army also said that instead of class B's and C's there will be a light gray shirt to be worn without the jacket. In this era the branches of the military are all doing their best to be unique and different, so I don't know if this uniform screams "Army!" to me, but I'm of the opinion that all services should wear a more similar "US" uniform rather than do their best to be different.

I can understand the need to "streamline" uniforms, but as a bud of mine said "who wants to wear the same uniform you wear to a funeral to a social event." The majority of people I work with wanted to go back to the WWII uniforms. Ideally, we would have three different uniforms: casual work (ACUs - another abomination), work (Khakis), and formal (blues). People don't take tuxedos and convert them into business wear...why are we doing it?

Lets face it, the Army wants to look just as good as the Marines do in thier Blues.....

with all the ' high tech ' gear they show the Army and Marines wearing in the photos from Iraq and Afghanistan, you'd think they'd just scrap all the green/blue/sand/khaki and go straight to the Starship Trooper look..after all it is the 21st Century!

unless they decide on the Star Trek look - I'm thinking the Kirk years Movie Look, not the early TV look or the wussie Picard years purple jumpsuit clingy thingy that looked good only on the trim-slim types.. Ryker in that looks positively ' poofter '.

Any more add-ons to the combat gear and the military will look like Cardassian Obsidian Order shock troops or the Borg...so , I guess, giving them a spiffed up set of Blues will make them look more touchy feely and spiffy in front of the civilians and cut down on costs [ given the escalating expense of the ' war on terror ' chopping an order of drerss and limiting ' options' has got to bring in some savings at a crucial point ]

Maybe they can go back to the old days when the soldier was docked pay to cover provision of uniforms [ cost recovery ? ]..

wrote a paper on uniform issues a while back looking at the Brit model after WWI and II, and the deecision to ' streamline ' kit...60 years later and there's still fallout over it...

personally I like the greens more than the blues. but hey...eh