Finally no more beret!!!!

The hated beret

I haven't written much lately (just graduated from Wash U, am going back to the Army next month). But I had to say something about this.

Certainly there are a lot more important things going on in the world, but to me personally, this is a very wonderful thing:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army said Monday that it was abandoning the beret, after a failed 10-year experiment.

The black beret, which proved deeply unpopular with American soldiers, will be replaced by a patrol cap for everyday wear, U.S. Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said.

The move came after outgoing Army chief of staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, asked the Army's sergeant major "to go out and talk to soldiers across the force and see what was on their minds," Collins told AFP.

"One of the things that soldiers consistently brought up was the desire to wear the patrol cap as part of their duty uniform," he said.

Honestly, the last 10 years I haven't met any soldier that actually liked the thing. It was hot, impractical, and takes a certain skill to wear correctly. Even those that had the skill often got too tired of constantly adjusting it when coming in/going outside buildings. Most soldiers simply wore it wrong, and it looked awful.

It's not going away entirely - it will still be part of the dress uniform, which is fine. That uniform was never supposed to be practical anyway.

Many people forget that this whole costly experiment was the pet project of Gen. Eric Shinseki, a darling of the political left, and currently the US Secretary of Veterans Affairs (I wonder how he feels about this change?). It was supposed to increase morale, but ended up doing just the opposite. Good riddance.