The move to an All-Volunteer Force (AVF) and subsequent repositioning to a tenuous peace during the Cold War brought opportunities for the Army to rebrand itself. The conclusion of American intervention in Southeast Asia ushered in a new era for the Army. Army personnel and an identity as an attractively uniformed Armed Service.” American involvement in Indochina was accompanied by slight iterations in the fatigues, and the Army even used the woodland camouflage, appropriate for jungle operations, that had first been developed in 1948. The green “fatigues,” adopted in 1954, were designed to “achieve a distinctive appearance for U.S. developed the recognizable woodland camouflage pattern that incorporated interlocking globule-shaped spots of green, brown, tan, and black. Clothing was colored to blend, but patterns did not emerge until much later.ĭuring the Second World War, the Allies began in earnest to produce uniforms that would be functional in any part of the world. That began to change in World War I, when aerial surveillance in alerted military leaders to the need for camouflage at that time there were plenty of artists who were ready to supply the needed theories and designs. Some scholars have argued that, while military clothing has had some utilitarian value from a tactical standpoint, uniforms since the Industrial Revolution have largely been devised to communicate more than to work. Army uniforms during the entire 20th century. The Army settled on a camouflage pattern that had roots in research done at West Point in the 1970s one that contrasted mightily with the patterns that represented U.S. Military planners had foreseen combat in urban centers before 9/11, but with Iraqi Freedom, a uniform that could perform in a variety of terrains took on an unmatched urgency. The ACU, and its “digitized” UCP, had become the distinctive symbol of the United States Army. Army troops had ACUs, and the old BDUs were never to be seen in combat again. “The goal was to find a more functional uniform.”Ĭhange the look of the Army, it did, however. Dave Anderson, who headed Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment at PEO Soldier, the Army agency charged with outfitting the force.

“The goal was not to change the look of the Army,” said Lt. Most of the 800,000 Soldiers who served in Iraqi Freedom or New Dawn wore it. Worn in garrison stateside until the present and in the Afghanistan until a few years ago, it is nevertheless the unmistakeble uniform of the Iraq War.

The ACU was officially announced service-wide on the Army’s birthday, June 14, in 2004. So when Soldiers refer to ACUs, they likely mean the UCP, or “digital camo.” The OCP-ACU has become well known for its use in Afghanistan since around mid-2010, but those ACUs were only to be worn in that particular theater. It’s replacement, which some Soldiers have already begun to wear, is the “Operational Camouflage Patterned” (OCP). The current pattern is technically called, “Universal Camouflage Pattern”(UCP). This is the life story of the ACU, and its obituary.īy way of definitions, the “ACU” will actually stay, though with a different pattern. The Soldiers are members of the 49th’s Personnel Security Detail who played a key role for the California brigade during Iraq’s national election March 7, 2010. Keith George, hidden) greet Iraqi police officers.

Soldiers in digital ACUs from the 49th Military Police Brigade (Spc.

Ucp camouflage