Ten years ago, General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, decided to improve the morale of the ordinary soldier by allowing him, too, to don the chic and sporty black beret, previously worn only by elite Ranger units.

But, as Gilbert and Sullivan noted in their Savoy opera of 1889 The Gondoliers: “If everybody’s somebody, then no one’s anybody.”

Apart from all that, berets are pretty silly looking and they don’t keep the sun out of your eyes. They are fussy to put on, needing a lot of adjusting, and they really look goofy with the digital pattern desert camouflage Army Combat Uniform used operationally every day.

Soldiers didn’t like it and Army Secretary John McHugh decided to bow to their wishes and pulled the plug on the beret on June 14th.

The headgear of French poets and girl scouts will be replaced by the patrol cap.

CNN story

Army Times story

Berets in US Army history