Second Lieutenant bars

[Eclipse]

Metal grade on BBDUs can turn into a comfort/safety issue when in the field. It can catch on pack straps, or get caught underneath and cause bruises and/or wounds.

Seriously - because of the placement, the frogs are right at your forehead.  I bent mine over and back into the cloth,
but I rarely wear the Castro hat, anyway.

[Майор Хаткевич]

When I reengaged as a SM, I had about 1 year left on the clock for captain, so I figured I'd wear the metal grade....did that for a few meetings, said screw it, and put cloth on.

[Luis R. Ramos]

If you wear metal on the cap, and wear the cap the way it is supposed to, the metal may scratch your forehead even if you do not smack into a branch... It has happened to me...

In other words, safety issue!

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

All good and valid reasons as to why one should not wear the metal grade on the BBDU hat.

But does anyone know why the powers-that-be let us wear it there and nowhere else?

Metal grade on BBDUs can turn into a comfort/safety issue when in the field. It can catch on pack straps, or get caught underneath and cause bruises and/or wounds.

Point taken (ouch!), but subdued metal grade (or, in the case of the Marines, non-subdued), with all its attendant hazards, has been worn on field uniforms for many years.