Lawmakers from both sides of Congress may have torpedoed the U.S. Army’s exhaustive effort to adopt a new camouflage pattern with a bill that forbids the use of service-specific camouflage for the entire U.S. military.
Language in both the House and Senate Armed Services committee versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2014 calls on the Pentagon to stop fielding service-specific camouflage patterns and instead develop a common pattern for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
The strong language, if approved as part of the 2014 NDAA, could prove to be major setback for the Army’s multi-year effort to replace its embattled Universal Camouflage Pattern.
Despite the proposed legislation, an Army official said the service is “studying the suitability of the uniform that soldiers currently wear in Afghanistan.”
“This appears to be the most effective uniform and is effective in a variety of scenarios that we’ve reviewed. We expect that we’ll make a decision soon on whether we adopt this uniform for the entire Army,” said William Layer, an Army spokesman, in an e-mail to Military.com.
