Love the US Army, but hate berets? I have great news!!

**Soldiermedic** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 6:19am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110613...ilitaryuniform

The thing of it is, I completed AIT just 3 months before this came about, and now its over. I feel so old.

**wetware** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 10:52am

About time. The berets were a foray into idiocy. "We want soldiers to look more elite." What a crock of ****.

**DKJr** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 11:00am

Damn I actually liked those. They looked kinda cool.

**gregaquaman** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 11:12am

Wow I really though I was going to read that they were going to be out for parade wear. Did you guys really wear those things out bush? that is insane.

**wetware** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 11:44am

Originally Posted by gregaquaman

Wow I really though I was going to read that they were going to be out for parade wear. Did you guys really wear those things out bush? that is insane.

No. It was purely garrison wear, but here's the deal with them: they take at least two hours to prep from package to head, if you have any hairstyle other than buzzcut or bald they will ruin it, they cost more than the patrol caps (which you also had to have), they do nothing to keep the sun out of your eyes and are hot as hell. If they were just something for class A's they would not have been hated nearly as much, but for day to day wear they were a pain in the ass.

**Gezere** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 1:38pm

Read this a few days ago. The beret isn't going away here so nothing will change.

**Soldiermedic** · Posted On: 6/14/2011 2:27pm

Originally Posted by wetware

About time. The berets were a foray into idiocy. "We want soldiers to look more elite." What a crock of ****.

I mean I'm not saying they dont look dashing and all, I've always wanted to look like a WW2 era british paratrooper. But **** did they make my scalp break out

**Phrost** · Posted On: 6/15/2011 12:58pm

I actually dig them, unlike the "wash and wear" ACUs and no-shine boots, you can immediately tell the squared away soldiers from the shitbirds just by looking to see if their beret is shaped properly.

Also, the patrol cap is stupid; if they want a functional piece of headgear for the field they should either go with a baseball cap or a boonie cap. The stovepipe PC is idiotic with all the extra space in it, and soldiers look like goddamn bakers wearing them.

I roll the crap out of mine.

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 6/15/2011 3:26pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

I actually dig them, unlike the "wash and wear" ACUs and no-shine boots, you can immediately tell the squared away soldiers from the shitbirds just by looking to see if their beret is shaped properly.

Lol this was how we used to grade people when I was in the cadets at school.

I always took pride in making sure my beret was done properly.

**wetware** · Posted On: 6/15/2011 5:09pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

I actually dig them, unlike the "wash and wear" ACUs and no-shine boots, you can immediately tell the squared away soldiers from the shitbirds just by looking to see if their beret is shaped properly.

Also, the patrol cap is stupid; if they want a functional piece of headgear for the field they should either go with a baseball cap or a boonie cap. The stovepipe PC is idiotic with all the extra space in it, and soldiers look like goddamn bakers wearing them.

I roll the crap out of mine.

BDUs were supposed to be wash and wear, too. Someone, somewhere decided they made good office wear and then had soldiers pressing and starching the hell out of them. This defeats one of the purposes of the BDU: to break up your outline and make you a little harder to identify as a target. Shined boots? That was fine. Shining boots was to preserve the waterproofing, it's just taking good care of your equipment as opposed to ruining it with starch. The extra space inside the patrol cap is good if you actually have any amount of hair. When you take it off to go inside you still don't look like a 'shitbird' because your hair isn't all matted down like it's some sort of paint job on your head like it was with the berets.
But you are definitely right about one thing: the boonie cap is an extremely functional piece of head wear. Pretty much as soon as my unit was in the field everyone was wearing one, but it would unfortunately never fly for garrison wear.