Why has the Army redesigned its uniforms?

After years of study—and the field deployment of thousands of prototype uniforms in Operation Enduring Freedom—the U.S. Army recently unveiled a new uniform, dubbed the Army Combat Uniform, or ACU. It will become standard-issue for all deployed troops in the fall of 2005. You can count on one hand the number of major uniform upgrades undertaken by the Army in the last century, so this sweeping sartorial redesign begs further analysis. What does the ACU tell us about the state of soldiering? *HIER