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By David Pugliese

Defence Watch

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The U.S. Army is making six changes to its combat uniform that include stripping Velcro from the sleeve pocket, elbow patches, knee patches and lower leg pocket flap, the Army Times is reporting. The service is also considering five additional fixes because soldiers asked for them, Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond Chandler, the service’s top enlisted official told the newspaper.

“Velcro has been controversial,” Chandler said. “We had Velcro on the wrists and our war fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan really had some concerns with noise discipline when they were in close proximity to the enemy. So we went to a button.”

The Canadian Army, however, does not have the same concerns.

“Within the Canadian Army, current combat uniform pattern places little reliance on the use of Velcro aside from identification purposes, such as name tags,” army public affairs officer Capt. Valerie Lanouette told Defence Watch. “Although our new Enhanced Combat Uniform (ECU) design utilizes more Velcro than the current uniform it continues to use less than the US Army uniform. Primarily, the use of this product continues to be for identification purposes, as these items are not required to be manipulated in a tactical scenario during combat. To this point, there have been no complaints from soldiers about the noise made by Velcro on the current issued uniform or the ECU. The CA has taken a balanced approach on the use of this material between noise and speed of access to items in the combat uniform pockets. Buttons provide much slower access to pockets than Velcro, whereas Velcro creates more noise than buttons. Therefore, we have no plan to change the amount of Velcro on the new ECU than is currently in production.”

Full Army Times story here: http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140812/NEWS07/308120054/Changes-your-combat-uniform