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Field effective camo now

If you pick up a book on leadership you’ll find a recurring theme: Listen to your employees. After all, they are the ones on the front lines, face to face with the customers.

That advice applies equally in the military. But even a cursory analysis of the camouflage uniform debacle indicates that Army leadership didn’t get the word.

The Army’s employees — soldiers — have been complaining about the camouflage uniform almost since Day One. Oh, troops love the cut, the fabric, the pockets — but the camouflage pattern works only in urban terrain.

The ACU is ineffective in Iraq; it’s a disaster in Afghanistan.

You don’t need an MBA or an expensive study to determine the effectiveness of the camouflage uniform. Take it to the battlefield and see if a soldier fades into the terrain. If he does, it works. If he is visible — “sticks out like a sore thumb,” as one soldier described it — it doesn’t. Period.

Now, several years and $5 billion — and heaven knows how many lives — later, the Army brass is finally addressing the problem. Within the next month, two different camouflage patterns will be put to the test in Afghanistan.

The tests should provide data to be used — we hope — in the development and deployment of a more effective combat uniform.

It would be nice to say leaders acted because they listened to their employees. But that’s not the case. It took a nudge from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. — who did listen to the troops — to force the Army’s hand.

The next step, the Army says, is a study of the field test. There’s already a study on the shelf at the Soldier Center in Natick, Mass.; the Army refuses to release it, probably because it indicts the ACU.

Enough of the studies.

It’s time to pick the most effective uniform and send it to the field so the troops can hide from the enemy.