Army 85-89
Army Reserve 90-98
National Guard 06-Current
Been through BDU's, chocolate chips, jungles, now crappy ACU's and soon, OCP's. Pickle suits were still authorized when I first came in, but they didn't issue them at Basic.
Best thing: jungle boots
Worst thing: jump boots (in winter, in Germany); ACU's; loosened enforcement of regs on wearing uniforms. The newer ACU's have replaced Velcro with buttons on the cargo pockets, so pants have 12 buttons now. Back in the BDU era, at inspections, you would have to do pushups for having a button unbuttoned, so you constantly checked to make sure your pockets were all buttoned on blouse and pants. The lax enforcement on ACU's has people with their shit all unbuttoned; officers, NCO's, joes. My platoon hates my button inspections. push ups for all!
