Out of Fashion - NYTimes.com The black beret is out. Ten years after it became standard gear in the United States Army, it has been replaced by the patrol cap as the default head gear for soldiers wearing combat uniforms, CNN reports. Soldiers had complained that the wool beret was hot, hard to adjust and took two hands to put on. Soldiers who were already wearing berets, and who will continue to wear them - like Special Forces, airborne troops and Army Rangers - were not happy either. They thought that having every soldier wear a beret diminished the work they had done to earn theirs. The decision by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Army chief of staff, reverses a policy laid down by a predecessor, Gen. Eric Shinseki. The patrol cap looks like a baseball cap, but with a flat, not rounded, top. Soldiers wearing their dress uniforms will still wear berets, but by reducing the number they will need from two to one, the Army will save $6.5 million.