In Mary Roach's book "Grunt" she talks about some of the poor decisions that went in to uniforms and how the style influences come full circle. Military camo influences fashion designers which influence commanders picking uniforms for troops. This article [0] talks about some portions of the book and the camo:

'In the early 2000s the Army attempted to come up with a Unified Field Theory, not for physics but for camouflage uniforms: they wanted one pattern that would hide troops in the woods, city streets and the desert. The uniform designers and engineers came up with 13 patterns for testing. But before the results were in, a general went ahead and picked a pattern—one that was not even among the 13 agreed-on contenders. “The new camouflage performed so poorly in Afghanistan that in 2009,” Roach notes, “the Army spent $3.4 million developing a new and safer pattern for troops deployed there.”

Meanwhile the Navy currently wears blue camouflage as its working uniform. “I asked a Navy commander about the rationale,” Roach recounts. “He looked down at his trousers and sighed. ‘That's so no one can see you if you fall overboard.'”'

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/author-mary-roach...