Female drill sergeants are now authorized to wear the same hat as their male counterparts, according to Army officials.

The green bush-style hat upturned on one side worn by female Army drill sergeants will be discontinued starting Jan. 2 in favor of the flat-brimmed olive-green campaign hats worn by men. The change applies to drill sergeants in the Regular Army and the U.S. Army Reserve.

“There’s a single standard to being awarded the drill sergeant badge, a single standard that we uphold all serving drill sergeants to, and moving forward, there will be a single hat that drill sergeants will be authorized to wear,” Command Sgt. Maj. Michael McMurdy, senior enlisted adviser for the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training, said in a statement Nov. 17.

The feedback from women serving as drill sergeants, along with issues ensuring the quality of the bush hats was being consistently met, led the Army to standardize headgear for all drill sergeants currently serving on the trail and moving forward, Center for Initial Military Training spokesman Hunter Rhoades said.

He added that over the past two years, no manufacturers had submitted bids to produce the hat worn by female drill sergeants, and the available stockpile of bush hats has run out.

The bush hat worn by female drill sergeants came into being in 1972, when six NCOs from the Women’s Army Corps at Fort McClellan, Alabama, became the first women to graduate from the drill sergeant program at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, according to the Army. Designed by Brig. Gen. Mildred Bailey, the original hat was beige and taken from the Australian bush hat. In 1983, the color was changed to green, according to the Army.

The men’s iconic broad-brimmed hat evolved from the 1883 campaign hat. It was abandoned in 1942 but reintroduced in 1964. Since then, the instantly recognizable hat has become a “proud symbol of the drill sergeant,” the Army said.

Each year, the Center for Initial Military Training conducts multiple surveys of currently serving drill sergeants and drill sergeant candidates on ways to improve the Drill Sergeant Program. The Army began investigating head gear standardization through its annual surveys beginning in fiscal year 2012, but the issue of hats “has been an area of concern and emphasis since 2010,” Rhoades said.

Remaining compliant with the Berry Act, which requires that goods, food, clothing and fabric be of a certain quality and made in the U.S., has been a challenge because of a lack of vendors interested in producing the bush hat. Army senior leaders determined that the lack of private sector production of the hat provided the right opportunity to standardize across the entire drill sergeant population, Rhoades said.

Importantly, roughly 70% of female drill sergeants surveyed expressed a desire to switch from the bush hat to the campaign hat, and more than 60% of drill sergeants surveyed believed that the campaign hat had a more professional appearance compared to the bush hat, according to Rhoades.

“Drill sergeants are the standard bearers for the Initial Military Training environment, and we solicited, consolidated and incorporated their feedback to improve the Drill Sergeant Program moving forward,” McMurdy said.