Stryker gets some!. "Tan 686A" that is...

A Stryker armored combat vehicle circles around the Stryker battle damage repair facility at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, Oct. 5. The Stryker infantry carrier vehicle had been restored after deterioration during enemy engagement in Iraq. It's the first vehicle to adopt a new desert tan color in Southwest Asia, in preparation for a planned phase out of the Stryker's current deep green color. Photo by Dustin Senger

More than six years after sending the first Stryker armored vehicles into desert combat, the Army has decided that it’s probably a good idea to start painting them tan so they will blend in with the environments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Safeguarding soldiers is the primary purpose for this color change,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Peter Butts, commander of the 1st Battalion, 401st Army Field Support Brigade, who announced the change in a news release from Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, earlier this month. “Strykers will blend into surroundings better. They’re less likely to stand out like silhouettes.”

Since 2003, Stryker units deploying to Iraq have done so with their vehicles painted in deep green, while most other units deployed with tan vehicles.

Jagadish Hajam, an auto body repairman and painter from Nepal, applies a coat of Tan 686A, a paint meant for desert camouflage, on the wheels of a Stryker armored combat vehicle inside a booth at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, Oct. 3. It's the first vehicle to adopt the new desert tan color in Southwest Asia, in preparation for a planned phase out of the Stryker's current deep green color. Photo by Dustin Senger

Dar Barker, a General Dynamics Land Systems retrofit chief from Puyallup, Wa., directs an armored combat vehicle outside the Stryker battle damage repair facility at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, Oct. 5. The Stryker infantry carrier vehicle had been restored after deterioration during enemy engagement in Iraq. It's the first vehicle to adopt a new desert tan color in Southwest Asia, in preparation for a planned phase out of the Stryker's current deep green color. Photo by Dustin Senger