Yesterday, in an unprecedented event, Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler III took some time out of his busy schedule for some Q&A with the media about the recent ACU changes announced to coincide with the Army’s birthday. SMA Chandler led off with a great statement, “we’ve been working on Army uniforms for 236 years.” This was an excellent point, illustrating that the Army uniform evolves along with the Army. Overall, the briefing was excellent. In addition to comments on the new changes to ACU wear, he mentioned that they are working on improvements to the Physical Fitness Uniform, particularly the shorts. He also discussed the transition from ACUs to the ASU for those serving on the Army staff coming up in October.

Unfortunately, I felt like the heavy. When I asked the SMA why the Army had announced the ACU changes without utilizing the Army Uniform Board process, I was told, “The Secretary said we didn’t need to wait.” One point was made very clear, the Secretary of the Army makes the decisions. Both the SMA and CSA only make recommendations. Not real cool, especially when the Army hides behind that same process when they don’t want to move on something. I think I was more surprised that he thought that this was acceptable behavior than I was that it had actually gone down that way.

While some Soldier concerns over Velcro have been alleviated by the recent changes to rank and name tapes, one remaining issue with Velcro has yet to be dealt with. Many Soldiers want to replace the Velcro found on the ACUs cuffs with buttons. I thought this was a dead issue after speaking with PEO Soldier in August of 2009 about it. The concern is that buttons will not make the cuff tight enough around the wrist to prevent flames from traveling inside the sleeve in an IED event or fire. The SMA did reiterate this same sentiment.

SMA Chandler said that the beret and Velcro were the top two uniform concerns of the Soldier. One interesting question was asked by another blogger, “what was number three?” The answer was most revealing; MultiCam. Soldiers want MultiCam and the Army’s top NCO said that that wasn’t going to happen.

Personally, I really appreciate the access he afforded us. Additionally, he was very well informed, at least from the Point of View of the Soldier. While I said he was very well informed, one point concerns me. Institutionally, I found him to be a little lacking. He had been briefed that the Army is currently looking for new camouflage but his answers to my queries about total cost to recapitalize the Army’s Soldier Systems led me to believe that no one has bothered to ask how much this all will cost. He plain old didn’t know and tried to punt by explaining that the Army wouldn’t know until they had fully weighed the camo improvement program proposals from industry. The problem is, the prices for ACUs and OCIE aren’t going to change that much and they are looking at going from one pattern of ACUs to two or three per Soldier. That is going to add up.

The Army leadership needs to get out in front of this now before someone in Congress asks them how many Billions this will cost. And, mark my words, it will be in the Billions to completely replace the Army’s uniform and OCIE that has been purchased over the past seven years.

The changes to the ACU don’t mean much to me these days but it is good to hear that morale is so easy to raise. Change hats and add the expense of sewing on badges and all is well. But hey, it isn’t all gloom and doom. They’ve done something. And they plan to do more. That’s definitely a step in the right direction.