It was an essential part of US soldiers' uniforms, but Velcro's ripping noise betrays their position to the enemy – and gets clogged with dirt

Is this the end of the line for Velcro? According to USA Today, the US army has decided to ditch that once most fashionable and space-age of fasteners from the pockets of trousers issued to soldiers in Afghanistan, and replace it with the humble button. The Velcro fasteners have, apparently, been failing to cope with bulging pockets – as well as collecting dirt and sand and even, with that unmistakable, fingers-on-blackboard ripping sound, betraying soldiers' positions to the enemy. US sergeant Kenny Hatten wrote on an army website, "Buttons are silent, work just fine in the mud, do not clog up with dirt and do not fray and disintegrate with repeated laundering."

Let us pause for a moment to mourn Velcro's fall from grace. A Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, came up with its ingenious hook-and-pile design in 1948, after returning from an Alpine hunting trip to find his dog's fur covered with tenaciously sticky burdock burrs. Its heyday came with the Apollo missions, when astronauts used it to help them get in and out of spacesuits, and to keep their pens and foodtrays handy.

Velcro soon became the fashionable fastener of choice: in 1967, this newspaper fawned over a collection of Sioux Indian-style "ankle-to-calf gaiters", featuring some distinctly natty Velcro fastenings. It was even, apparently, used to hold together a human heart during the first artificial-heart surgery.

Now, of course, Velcro is confined mainly to ski-suits, aeroplane antimacassars, trainers and the art of Velcro-jumping, in which fun-seekers launch themselves against a Velcro-covered inflatable wall – which sounds a lot less dangerous than realising that the enemy can hear you opening your pockets in the desert.