Moving pockets on ABU pants

Started by melliemoo, July 06, 2025, 10:24:37 PM

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melliemoo

Hello. My son is on the short side and he hates how bunched up his ABU pants look when he wears them. There's not much room to hem them because of the lower pockets on the legs. Can I move the pockets up so I can shorten the pants? And yes I looked in the regulations and the only thing I really found is that the pants don't have to be tucked into the boots.

He's 5'5" with a 36" waist and has a stocky build, in case that helps.

Thanks!!

Shuman 14

While technically not authorized, no one will likely notice and no one that does notice will likely care.

ABUs will be going away (hopefully soon) and as a growing young man, this may not be an issue very much longer after his next growth spurt.

I say go ahead and do it. That's just my opinion of course.

Just as an aside, I'm a left hander so I always have the pen slots on my OCPs moved from my left arm to the right one so I can actually access my pens one-handed. In ten+ years of doing that, only had one person notice and I told him I special ordered left-handed OCPs at CIF and he rolled his eyes and walked away.

Point being no one is going to be scrutinizing your son's calves to eyeball measure the pocket.
Joseph J. Clune
Lieutenant Colonel, Military Police

USMCR: 1990 - 1992                           USAR: 1993 - 1998, 2000 - 2003, 2005 - Present     CAP: 2013 - 2014, 2021 - Present
INARNG: 1992 - 1993, 1998 - 2000      Active Army: 2003 - 2005                                       USCGAux: 2004 - Present

Abby.L

Quote from: Shuman 14 on July 09, 2025, 04:52:39 PMJust as an aside, I'm a left hander so I always have the pen slots on my OCPs moved from my left arm to the right one so I can actually access my pens one-handed. In ten+ years of doing that, only had one person notice and I told him I special ordered left-handed OCPs at CIF and he rolled his eyes and walked away.

That's amazing, honestly. While we were in BDUs, I considered grabbing some extra fabric and getting pen pockets sewn on the sleeve a la ABU, but never did get around to it.

On another note, that's also what I liked about my 2FDUs that I had in the AF - pen pockets on both sleeves! I just checked my OCPs for the same thing but unfortunately it's just on the right sleeve for that one.

You could store a LOT of pens on that uniform.
Capt Abby R. Lockling
SSgt(Sep) USAF, 41ECS
Charlie flight, NBB 2013