They've got a nice little wavey "Department of Defense" marquee on the background, a little US flag in the center, and on the front it says "Affiliation: Uniformed Services". I guess this is a more universal, civilian friendly card, since I see civilians and contractors come in through the gates with a whole mess of different looking cards. Also the chip looks different.
The backs look exactly the same, though.

Personally, I think what with everyone having different kinds of cards (dependents, retirees, dependents of retirees, civilian workers, contractors, etc etc) this will make some things a little easier.

Has anyone changed to one of these yet? If you have, does it work in the old cherry readers?

I got one of them, they look so much nicer and more durable than the older ones. I don't know what the old cherry readers are, but I haven't had any problem connecting my cac to anything yet.

Hopefully the chip is not much different. Else we'll be replacing hundreds of thousands of CAC readers. I'm pretty sure someone had more sense than that though.

The cherry readers are the CAC readers on the computers. Either the standup ones, the ones that lie down, or the in-built keyboard or the PCMCIA ones. Theyre all called cherry readers.

One of the guys in the contracting offices got an LOC for sending out a mass email briefing about "prematurely removing your CAC from the cherry". Heh.

The cherry readers are the CAC readers on the computers. Either the standup ones, the ones that lie down, or the in-built keyboard or the PCMCIA ones. Theyre all called cherry readers.

One of the guys in the contracting offices got an LOC for sending out a mass email briefing about "prematurely removing your CAC from the cherry". Heh.


Well then yes, the card does work with the cherry readers.

I've got one. The only reason I really wanted it was because my old ID was taken in boot camp. Talk about a dorky haircut.

I have one, actually I have two old ones and a new one, plus the old school green ones.