They have the history quite incorrect though. The WWII ones (which I don't remember. GRIN!) were metal frames and very much in keeping with style the period. Those frames were easy to buy as surplus and were the very thing in the 1960s.
The bit about being desperate and "suddenly" letting people needing glasses in the military during the war was pure bollocks. The American military always let people in who wore corrective lenses for as long as there were corrective lenses. There were some specific jobs that you might be restricted from like flying, but in the main you weren't restricted from service if your eyesight corrected to 20/20 and your uncorrected eyesight was within some pretty generous limit. Harry Truman, for example, was a battery commander during the Great War; he wore pretty thick glass throughout his adult life after a childhood bout with diphtheria.
The bit about "needy" soldiers is nonsense, too. Every service member had access to eyecare and, if you needed corrective lenses, you were issued two pair regardless of financial need in civvie life.
BTW, the WWII metal frames also fit issue clip-on sunglasses, the benefit of standardisation. Stylistically, though, they could hardly be called BCGs. They were actually quite mainstream.
During the Vietnam era, there was a pink plastic frame they don't mention in the article. They were truly hideous; the first BCG by name. My first issue glasses were those things.
By 1980, they were black soft plastic frames; very 1950s looking things. I used to wear them in the field with a strap around the back of my neck. In the field I certainly could not have cared less about the social appeal regarding my eyewear.
Those brown ones came into being after 1990. As far as actually having to wear them, the only requirement was you had to be able to produce two pair as issued and, if you chose, you were certainly allowed to wear your personal eyewear rather than BCGs so long as the Army wasn't held responsible for their loss or damage and there was never a time when you could not perform your duties for lack of or destruction of your personal eyewear.
As far as the BCGs, I never wore them in garrison, always wore them in the field, and had no problems of a social nature caused by BCGs. Any issues I had in that regard were more easily and accurately the result of my winning personality or a complete lack of sensitivity for "feelings".
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