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Coordination, not sameness, sought in uniforms

Lawmakers have dropped the idea of making everyone in combat wear the exact same uniform and camouflage pattern.

But out of concern for safety, function and performance, they want more cooperation between the services over ground combat and utility clothing.

The key concern is that U.S. personnel wearing different uniforms in a combat zone raise the risk of friendly fire.

The services raised enough of a fuss about having different needs that lawmakers dropped from the 2010 defense authorization bill a proposed requirement to standardize combat uniforms in the future.

In a report accompanying the defense bill, congressional negotiators agreed that the services may have uniforms that “uniquely reflect the identity of the individual services.” But the report says lawmakers still want uniforms that minimize the risk of mistaken identity and share technological advances and improvements across all services.

Lawmakers also directed the services to establish joint criteria for ground combat uniforms, and expect special operations forces to be covered by the joint standards.

To prod more cooperation in uniforms, lawmakers ordered a quick, 180-day assessment by the Government Accountability Office that will look at what uniforms are now in use, their advantages, similarities and differences.