Female Army drill sergeants to begin wearing iconic ‘Smokey Bear’ hat next year

Male Army drill sergeants have worn the iconic brown campaign hat for decades while teaching recruits how to march and fire their rifles during basic training.

Their female counterparts will soon follow suit and trade their Australian-style bush headgear for what are affectionately known as Smokey Bear hats.

The new Army uniform policy is expected to take effect in early January, an Army spokesperson said Monday.

With the change, Army drill sergeants will wear the same headgear as their female counterparts in the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard. Air Force military training instructors will continue to wear the Australian-style slouch hat, while the Navy does not have a distinctive headgear for its recruit division commanders.

On Monday, an Army spokesman confirmed the change but said the decision to adopt the “round brown” across the service was based on logistics concerns. Vendors were unable to supply a sufficient number of olive-drab bush hats for the relatively small cohort at the expected quality.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has mandated that the military adopt uniform physical standards. However, an Army spokesperson said the headgear change for female drill sergeants wasn’t part of that program.

Army drill sergeants began wearing the campaign hat in 1964 as a way of distinguishing themselves from the recruits they were charged with transforming into soldiers. The female version was adopted in 1972 after six noncommissioned officers from Fort McClellan, Alabama, became the first women to pass the Army’s drill sergeant course.

Providing campaign hats for female drill sergeants has been a topic of debate inside the Army for several years. Multiple surveys have indicated that it would be a popular move within the ranks, with respondents saying that the hat looked more professional than the bush hat.