I was wondering,  how are optics issued in the military,  i have a freind who was in iraq, (national guard) and he said he had an optic,  but wasn't sure what it was,  I talked to an AF combat controller and he said that they could request anything they wanted,  but thats special forces so i understand that,  I know most patrol rifles in the AF for securty forces don't have optics,    But how do they decide if a guardsman gets an aimpoint,  or acog,  or what?

Not %100 sure but I beleive it is what ever  that a paticular unit buys, also if allowed buy their command some soldiers/marines buy their own optics

whatever is in the units armory

What they are issued is determined by the Units MTOE.  That will vary unit to unit. any Specific Info beyond that gets into OPSEC/ PERSEC issues.
chuck

the army as well as other services have bought large quantities of optics-while the m68 (aimpoint) is the official army optic, our unit was issued eotech's and some guys got acogs- it has a lot to do with whatever the supply system has available for issue. some units (like mine) would not care if you used a personnaly owned optic or even upper or put a telelstaock on a full length rifle other units werwe real fussy. just depends

Not sure if anything is hard and fast but once a unit is in country, there is another secondary issue availible like 6 months into a deployment and at that point my unit had enough sights, for 80% of soldiers to be carrying the sight they personally wanted to carry.  

Our initial issue was only allowing probably 20% to do that by comparison.

It depends on the unit, supply chain, and supply SGT.  We couldn't get replacement night vision parts, and my brother just told me that his HMMWV crashed into a ditch and nearly rolled and his 14's were destroyed, and he had a replacement unit the next day.  

Our guys were taking them apart and canabalizing and repairing units, as well as mounts.  Some guys were zip-tying mounts together so I guess it completely depends on the unit.