The Battle Dress Uniform will be officially retired from the Army on April 30 .

WASHINGTON - The Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for G-1 (Personnel) announced this month that the final wear-out date for the Army Battle Dress Uniform and Desert Battle Dress Uniform will be April 30 for both active-duty and reserve-component Soldiers.

The Army began phasing out the woodland and desert-pattered uniforms on June 14, 2004 with debut of the digital-patterned Army Combat Uniform.

“Our Army is always looking to constantly improve on everything we do, both on and off the battlefield,” said Sgt. Maj. Katrina L. Easley, uniform policy sergeant major at G-1. “We took a look the combat usability of what was once a good uniform, and based upon feedback from the field, decided to improve it and fix the many problems reported. There were at least 20 changes made and the result is the current ACU.

I’m not the first one to note that having different uniforms for each branch of service is not a particularly bright idea. Logistically, whoever is in charge of supply will have to worry about undershirt, boots, trousers, jacket and a dozen other branch-specific uniform components. At-tempting to skirt these problems by requiring all unit members to wear the same uniform, even those attached from other branches, has resulted in a DoD uniform war. I expect these things increase in importance the further you get from actual work.

The legacy of the Bush-era transformation was supposed to be an improvement to the joint capabilities of the military. Eight years later, and we’ve done away with the joint uniform - who says there’s no progress?

I am, of course, behind the times. As I remember the Army when only the guys who fell out of airplanes wore berets.