Before the 2018 announcement of the introduction of the Army Green Service Uniform (AGSU) as an eventual replacement for the Army Service Uniform (ASU), Private E-2 Second Class Chevrons were manufactured in a golden-light color with a background/border of either Army blue (for wear on the ASU/ASU Dress Coat and Blue Mess Dress Jacket) or white (White Mess Dress Jacket.
But for its new Service Uniform, the Army not only added a new background/border color—Heritage Green 564, also used for the AGSU Coat, Garrison Cap, Necktie, and Pullover Sweater—but also a new color for the Chevron, Heritage Tan 566.
In addition to those these three background/border colors, you will also see an option for “Green.” This selection is for chevrons to be worn on the Army’s now-discontinued (as of September 2015) Class A and B Army Green Uniforms, which we continue to manufacture.
The Private chevron is centered between the shoulder seam and the elbow. Chevrons (except for E-4 Specialist) are manufacture in Large and Small sizes, which the Army classifies as "Male (large) insignia" and " Female (small) insignia," but whether this is a requirement that males only wear Large and females only wear Small is not explicitly stated.
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The single chevron now used as the rank insignia for the E-2 Private grade was originally introduced in 1920 as the rank insignia for Privates First Class (PFC). Until that time, PFC rank insignia had no chevron, consisting instead of simply the branch insignia—and Privates had no rank insignia at all. A 1919 Secretary of War order mandated that the PFC insignia would include a one-bar arc beneath the branch insignia, a change that was part of the Army’s attempt to reduce the confusing system for rank insignia and chevron designs that had grown unchecked from the time of the Civil War.
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The issue had become pressing: During World War War I, there were over seventy different Army chevron designs. And even with the elimination of numerous temporary wartime ranks. that number still remained over fifty by 1919.
But the change to the PFC insignia, along with other Army plans to streamline its insignia system, was never effected—and Congressional action in 1920 ensured they never would be. In a drastic move, Congress “simplified” the pay structure of the U.S. military by creating just seven enlisted pay grades, and the Army responded by designing generic chevrons to reflect six of those grades in its enlisted rank. The rank of Private First Class (E-2) was assigned a single chevron; the lowest Army rank, Private E-1, wore no rank insignia at all.
It was not until 1968 that the Department of the Army assigned the single chevron as the rank insignia for Privates E-2, and added an arc—what many folks call a “rocker”—underneath a lone chevron and designated it for wear by Privates First Class E-3.