Shouldn’t the services pick what works the best? Even if it means that different branches use the same pattern? The purpose of the camo is not to provide distinguishing color patterns for the different branches of the service, it is to provide camoflage from the enemy.
Why should the government spend who knows how much money to find a different camo pattern for the army, when the marines already have one that appears to be superior?
Proprietary my ass, they all work for us.
Well for one thing, the various branches of service already have different uniforms, so having different battle dress is just an extension of that.
Another thing is that the services have differing requirements for their uniforms- the Marines are going for the best camo possible in the given situation, while the Army wants to issue one camo for everything (although they’re now issuing Multicam instead of ACUPAT in Afghanistan, I believe). The Navy’s big concern is camouflaging grease and crud stains on the utility uniforms, and the USAF wants to look a little different.
Why does the air force need camouflage at all? 
It’s useful when they send teams through the Stargate to potentially hostile worlds.
Each service wants control over it’s uniform requirements. For example, the Navy may want to focus it’s attention on fire retardant properties of a uniform.
The Army and Marines may want something durable and comfortable for the foot soldiers, who may have to wear it for a more than one day on patrol in high heat or humidity.
If the Navy was forced to use the same uniform (even if a different color), then the Navy couldn’t change priorities or requirements in the future without the Army agreeing to the changes. (And vice verse.)
Parachute out of shot down plane into enemy territory, and a bright orange jumpsuit, isn’t going to be all that handy.
Yes, but none of that is relevant to the pattern of colors. You could print a MARPAT pattern on cloth designed to be fire-resistant, or comfortable for extended wear, or whatever.
Exactly!
But since the Marine Corps is claiming that MARPAT is proprietary, the Army will hire some consultant and spend too much money to have their own cammo pattern designed.
I have no idea how much will be wasted here on this individual issue, but it’s the mindset that permeates our military and other areas of the government that are extremely redundant and wasteful.
The Air Force does have fighting men who drop into war zones to engage the enemy. I don’t mean pilots but men with rifles on the ground.
Yes. I see that now. I misunderstood the Marine Corp’s objection.
“Those Army posers want to masquerade as Marines.” is the real one. 
I thought it was over consolidating vendors, or some such.
I officially apologise… I got hacked by Breitbart. The dog ate my research.
Say what else you wil about MacNamara as SecDef, he did cut through a lot of this inter-service BS, and tried to streamline the services to eliminate redundancy on these kinds of issues.
Update - the Army has tentatively decided on a new proprietary pattern, shown in an artist’s rendering here.
Sure, but Air Force flight suits are mostly (all?) green-grey.
Okay, that makes sense.
I think it would be great to bring back the Zouave uniform.
To provide a contrasting background for the mandatory reflective belts.
