>>2443191DOD contractors jew the fuck out of the military. Dudes who spend a lot of time in their kit like infantry, SOF, SF, etc, are typically allowed to buy their own gear outside of stuff like armor plates and helmets as long as they stick to certain brands (crye, mayflower, arcteryx, salomon, etc). SOF guys get a ton more leeway with this and are even usually issued the gucci stuff.
The main reason you see some units restricting gear to issue-only is because dumb broke-ass privates try to buy airsoft shit like 5.11 or Condor and the stitching on their LBE or plate carrier blows out on day 2 of a week long FTX and they're fucked.
>t. infantryman with a gear fetish/wants to mitigate his utter fucking misery as much as he can while in the field/deployed 