This exactly right here is why I said I understand its a rite of passage in my first post, but its the kind of attitude I detest. Leaders who just accept this cost soldiers hundreds of dollars. Sure, as an officer, I make enough to cover these uniforms fine without a clothing allowance, but the clothing allowance does not even cover the wear out rate of normal uniforms for my soldiers in a typical year. They're maintainers that beat the absolute crap out of their daily wear, and currently a set of ACUs costs about $110. They're supposed to have 5 on hand. I promise they go through at least 2-3 sets a year just in garrison operations, not including boots (anywhere from $100-150 for a decent set. Flight approved always range on the higher side because we have less options) which they'll destroy a set with oil stains every year. Transmission oil does not come out of pants or boots ever. We don't work with coveralls, because they aren't issued. There aren't enough A2CUs to issue to every single maintainer in a Delta or Bravo maintenance company so these folks will be working in ACUs that they will then have to replace (how we get around replacing uniforms for crew chiefs in flight companies: A2CUs are a CIF issue item only and will be replaced by the Army when deemed unserviceable unlike ACUs).
So for these folks in ACUs, that's about $400 right there not taking into account patches, nametapes, etc. or anything else they need like running shoes, undershirts, or hats (because we can't apparently not lose these) that all are required uniform items their allowances are supposed to cover. They only get about $310 a year to replace items as their clothing allowance. Anything else is covered out of pocket, and for the type of uniform that pink/greens will become, they will hardly ever wear it. It'll come out for very specific uniform inspections or boards, but that's about it. We'll still wear our Class A's to balls which is pretty much the only time these guys would wear anything besides ACUs anyways.
Even as an officer, I'll hardly wear it unless I work a job in the Pentagon or similar nature that puts me in an office. Otherwise, I'll be rocking A2CUs or ACUs on a daily basis, because for right now, I still mostly actually work for a living. Well, at least pretend to anyways.
So rant complete, but basically to sum it up, the acceptance of these kinds of changes as just part of the job is part of the disconnect that is causing my branch to have some of the highest retention issues its seen in quite a while. It might seem little, but this kind of attitude from leadership added up over the course of many, many little things forces people to go look on the outside of what they can do better with their time.
Oh, I understand the logic. I didn't have an issue with using Class B's as the in between for a business casual for those working in an environment that combat uniforms aren't appropriate for day to day wear. I think it struck the balance between being able to use your Class A's for the more formal events and having a Class B's as a version which could be worn comfortable and look professional in an office environment. If you're in the environment, mess dress exists to bridge the gap to your even more formal black tie type events. In my opinion, most of the push to bring this uniform back really resulted from too many people disliking the fact that our uniform wasn't distinctive enough on its own when worn as Class B's to scream Army and needed to find a new uniform to rebrand the Army for appearances sake.
If we want to go back to tradition for tradition's sake to build espirit d'corps, bring back pickle suits. I know you know how many WOs that'll make happy and will be one less thing for them to complain about big Army stomping out our branch's heritage.