Recently, I wanted to purchase a new pair of sunglasses, and I went down a rabbit hole. I thought I’d blog my experience. My last pair of sunglasses (Oaklyes) which I purchased when I was a teenager, became damaged on some parts of the lens. I figures I might could get it repaired, but they became a bit small for me anyways (I know I could’ve purchased bigger frames, yes). I started my search on Reddit, specfically the r/buyitforlife subreddit. I didn’t like the styles, but I saw some Mmilitary sunglasses which looked nice. After some Googling I found out about the military glasses specs and about OHSA’s z97.1 secure glass specs.
That brought me to looking at military spec and z97.1 approved sunglasses. Those specs are usually reversered for safety glasses, but I was interested in having secure/safe sunglasses. I discovered that Oakley, which is part of the group along with Prada, Ray-ban and other big namers have a monopoly for polarized sunglasses to an extent. has a military org entity. Some companies made them in the US to meet the US DoD’s requirements. Eventually I found the U.S. Army’s approved vendor for eyewear glasses and purchased one from Amazon (directly from Amazon), because I had to have a CAC/military ID to purchase directly from them.
Overall I like my cheap safe new sunglasses and enjoyed my journey about learning about this stuff.