Lots of good points and counter points. I remember the cadets of the 70‘s (holy ****, I‘m old!) with the kaki shirts, pants and puddies. Things have changed alot, not necessarily for the worst. I also remember that in the reserves (joined in 1980 and still in) that if you tried to exchange your combat uniform, you hoped that someone else was finished with it first. We‘ve come a long way. As far as personal kit goes, the gortex combat uniforms are damn good. We are making progress, maybe not at the pace we would like but we are going in the right direction. If you look hard enough, you‘ll find fault every where. Want to hear about the crap going on inside big corperations? If you don‘t like the level of recruit you‘ve got, YOU take the responcibility to train the soldier. You never know, you may need that piece of s**t to save your *** in some faraway place some day. It‘s up to us to develop the kind of soldier that will wear the hat badge of our Regiments. Just for fun, look up the guy that taught you on your recruit course and see what they thought of you when joined.