The US Army Makes a $5 billion Uniform Mistake that Endangered the Lives of Soldiers

The Marines decided they wanted new and fashionable uniforms so they went to a Home Depot and picked out new uniform colors from Ralph Lauren paint samples.

According to Business Insider “Five billion dollars, eight years later, and the Army is now doing the whole thing again.”, here.

Why?

The Army made a hugely expensive decision that endangered the lives of soldiers by making them wear camouflage uniforms that actually made them more visible targets.

Army ditches failed combat uniform that put a target on grunts’ backs for 8 years

The Army is changing clothes.

Over the next year, America’s largest fighting force is swapping its camouflage pattern. The move is a quiet admission that the last uniform — a pixelated design that debuted in 2004 at a cost of $5 billion — was a colossal mistake.

Soldiers have roundly criticized the gray-green uniform for standing out almost everywhere it’s been worn. Industry insiders have called the financial mess surrounding the pattern a “fiasco.”....

“Essentially, the Army designed a universal uniform that universally failed in every environment,” said an Army specialist who served two tours in Iraq, wearing UCP in Baghdad and the deserts outside Basra. “The only time I have ever seen it work well was in a gravel pit.”

The specialist asked that his name be withheld because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “As a cavalry scout, it is my job to stay hidden. Wearing a uniform that stands out this badly makes it hard to do our job effectively,” he said. “If we can see our own guys across a distance because of it, then so can our enemy.”

The fact that the government spent $5 billion on a camouflage design that actually made its soldiers more visible — and then took eight years to correct the problem — has also left people in the camouflage industry incensed.

Heck, it's only taxpayer dough and the lives of the soldiers. But somebody in government approved spending $5 billion on worthless and dangerous uniforms sporting Ralph Lauren colors that made a fashion statement.  If a soldier is going to come home in a body bag, he may as well look good.