Can You Wear Contacts in the Army? Deployment, Gas Masks, Backups

Yes, you can wear contacts in the Army during routine garrison duty if they are prescribed by a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist, but the allowance ends the moment conditions get dirty or dangerous. Contact lenses are prohibited during Basic Combat Training, field exercises, gas chamber training, deployments, and combat. Every soldier who wears contacts must also keep military-issued backup glasses on hand, and tinted, colored, or decorative lenses are banned in uniform.¹

When Contacts Are Allowed

In garrison, prescribed contacts are permitted. The Army recommends what it calls flexible extended wear: contacts when the mission calls for clear, unobstructed vision, glasses whenever circumstances allow, so your eyes get recovery time.²

Soft hydrogel lenses with lower water content (60 percent or less) are generally preferred in military environments because they resist drying and tolerate dust better. Rigid gas-permeable lenses are discouraged, especially in aviation, because airborne debris can lodge beneath the lens.²

Commanders retain the authority to restrict contact lens wear at any time based on safety or mission needs, so a unit policy can be stricter than the Army-wide rule.

Basic Training, Field, and Deployment

If you are shipping to Basic Combat Training, leave your contacts at home. Army policy explicitly prohibits contact wear during BCT, along with field exercises, gas chamber training, deployments, and combat. The reasoning is practical: those environments are too dirty, demanding, and unpredictable for safe lens hygiene, and extended wear without proper removal leads to corneal irritation, abrasion, and potential ulceration.¹

You will receive military-issued glasses early in training that meet durability and ballistic-protection standards. There is no waiver process available to individual recruits for contact wear during BCT. The only exceptions require approval from the Office of The Surgeon General to meet specific mission requirements, or a waiver through a combatant commander’s surgeon’s office. Soldiers in approved research studies may also be exempt.¹

The same prohibition extends to operational environments after training. Poor hygiene conditions in the field cause soldiers to over-wear their lenses, and continuous wear without removal can lead to inflammation, infection, and in severe cases, permanent vision loss.¹ If you rely exclusively on contacts for clear vision, you will have problems the moment you leave garrison.

Gas Masks and CBRN Environments

Contacts create a specific hazard anywhere a protective mask or respirator is required. Full-face respirators push a constant stream of filtered air across the eyes, drying out both the lens and the underlying tissue. In a contaminated environment, you cannot remove the mask to adjust or take out a lens without exposing yourself to the hazard.³

Operations involving nerve agents, blister agents, or other chemical exposure hazards require explicit approval from the installation commander, preventive medicine officer, safety officer, and an optometrist or ophthalmologist before anyone wears contacts. In practice, the gas chamber exercise during training and any CBRN field problem will require prescription glasses.³

Colored, Tinted, and Novelty Lenses in Uniform

AR 670-1, the Army’s grooming and appearance regulation, flatly prohibits tinted or colored contact lenses while in uniform. The only exception is medically prescribed opaque lenses for eye injuries. Clear lenses with decorative designs that alter the appearance of your iris are also banned.¹

Backup Glasses Are Not Optional

Every soldier who needs vision correction must have military-issued glasses, whether or not they prefer contacts. Active duty service members receive their eyewear through the optometry clinic at their military hospital or clinic. The standard issue includes one pair of glasses, one pair of prescription sunglasses, and one additional pair of your choice.⁴

For tactical use, the Military Combat Eye Protection program provides ballistic-rated spectacles and goggles that accept prescription lens inserts. The clinic supplies the prescription insert; the protective frames and goggles themselves are issued during Initial Entry Training, through the Rapid Fielding Initiative before deployment, or ordered through unit supply channels.⁵ When contacts are prohibited, that issued eyewear is the only thing between you and impaired vision on a mission.

Who Pays for Contacts

The Army covers prescription glasses, but TRICARE’s coverage of contact lenses is limited. TRICARE states that it covers contacts “in some circumstances,” and the program does not appear to provide routine coverage for standard contacts worn by choice rather than medical necessity.⁶ If you want contacts for garrison use, expect to pay out of pocket for the fitting and the lenses. A civilian contact lens exam and fitting typically runs $90 to $250, plus the ongoing cost of replacement lenses.

A Permanent Way Out: Refractive Surgery

If juggling contacts and backup glasses sounds like more trouble than it is worth, the Army will fix your vision for free. The Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program provides LASIK and PRK at no cost to eligible active duty soldiers. The program exists specifically to reduce the military’s dependence on corrective lenses in operational environments, and it removes the contact restrictions entirely once you have healed.⁷

Eligibility includes active duty status with at least six months of service remaining from the surgery date, stable vision for at least one year (two years if you are 18 to 20), commander’s authorization in writing, no deployment, PCS, or school within three months of surgery, no pending adverse actions or medical evaluation boards, and a full-time requirement for corrective lenses. Part-time wearers do not qualify.⁷

You must stop wearing contacts and switch to glasses for at least 30 days before your preoperative screening. Even a few hours of lens wear during that period can affect the test results and your surgical outcome.⁸

1
U.S. Army. Contact Lenses in the Military
2
National Library of Medicine. Recommendations – Contact Lens Use Under Adverse Conditions
3
U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center. Chemicals, Contact Lenses, and Respirators
4
TRICARE. Glasses and Contacts
5
Defense Technical Information Center. Military Combat Eye Protection
6
TRICARE. Contact Lenses
7
Darnall Army Medical Center. Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program
8
TRICARE – Fort Irwin. Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program