DoD to accommodate “individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs”
Pinto Nag sends us a link to an NBC article that says that the Pentagon wants to relax grooming and uniform standards in order to “accommodate individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” meaning that they’re going to allow religious symbols like beards and turbans and stuff. I guess Sergeant Major of the Army Ray Chandler, the fellow who wants to get rid of people who have tattoos is on board with this one;
NBC News obtained an early draft of the new Department of Defense instruction which states that the military will make every effort to accommodate “individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of service members.
It goes on to say that unless doing so could have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, health and safety, or any other military requirement, commanders can grant service members special permission to display their religious articles while in uniform.
Requests for religious accommodation can be denied when the “needs of mission accomplishment outweigh the needs of the service member,” the directive will explain.
Yeah, well, if you can get a tight seal on your protective mask with a beard, I’d go along with it. Again, it’s people who don’t understand that military has standards for a good reason who are writing all of these fuzzy feeling rules.
It goes on to say that “it is particularly important to consider the effect on unit cohesion.”
Each individual service member has to re-apply for new permission at each new assignment, transfer of duty stations, and for each deployment.
Yeah, that won’t last long. I can just imagine Joes telling their new sergeant that their last unit let them do something that they can’t do at their current assignment. I can’t imagine a beard being hygienic at all. When I had mine for a few months a couple of years ago, food would jump up into my beard from the plate, I swear. It smelled like my last meal for hours afterward.
Category: Big Army
the “needs of mission accomplishment outweigh the needs of the service member,”
This should apply to everything.
Well, The SF community has took the legs out from under DOD as far as trying to claim that being clean Shaven is a must for field hygiene. Damn near every Spec-ops guy they show in the WOT has a beard like Chuck Norris.
I saw men get pissed off when somebody else had a shaving profile…Yeah, a beard for religious reasons won’t be a problem. But you damn sure better cover up that ink!
Basically a bet: DOD is betting there will never, ever be a gas attack and they are willing to allow soldiers to stake their lives on the outcome. “OK, all I have to do is untangle my turban from the straps, and suck in to check the seal – ah, shit” are not the last words I would want to be known for.
Funny, I’d bet a protective mask would seal pretty good over a tattoo.
The gas mask argument is a non issue. If a soldier is about to deploy to an AOR with suspected chemical weapons, it only takes five minutes to shave off a beard. I have worn a beard on my last five deployments in Afghanistan and have never had a problem accomplishing any mission.
In the Colonial Army, soldiers could be punished for cutting their hair too short. There is really no logical reason to maintain the current 1950s era ultra-conservative grooming standards, especially with the coming integration of females into all career fields.
Nose bones and Prince Edwards?
Alexander and Julius Caesar both required short hair on their soldiers, because knew that long hair was something that an enemy could grab and use as leverage to cut your head off.
Swords have not yet gone out of style as weapons in the Middle East.
Wait a minute; is this the same DoD that is giving Chaplains a hard time? Now they want to get all religious?? Yeah, right, just as long as you aren’t one of those evil Christians, it’s ok.
Back in the day I remember guys getting “shaving wavers” for some kind of skin condition. They looked terrible in uniform. I am just too old school I guess for these new touchy-feely times and programs. The way they described it, it sounds like anyone with a valid “religious” claim or reason for wearing what they want will get to look as they want. Think spiked hair, long beards and moustaches, absurd tattoos and that’s just the women. 😀 Seriously, I think it is a bad idea all around. The military is about equality of standards and uniformity. It has worked for a long time and I see no need to change it. Just MHO.
The good news is yes, you can grow a beard now. The bad news is we’ve decided to replace you with a robot.
That’ll work out real well the first time there’s a fire on the boat/ship (like that NEVER happens, right Master Chief?) and PO Schmuckatelli has to spend 10 minutes shaving so he can put on his EAB or OBA.
@9: I agree. Uniform grooming standards are there for a reason. It’s not to punish anyone, but it is to keep everyone………..uniform. Are they going to allow modified uniforms, too? I mean, just wear whatever you feel like wearing on any given day. It doesn’t interfere with you accomplishing the mission, so it should be good to go; right? You want to go on patrol sporting the latest in outerwear from LL Bean? Go for it, cuz you will still be able to accomplish the mission and look damn snappy doing so!!!
Individuality in uniform choices. Yes, that will be great if the guys start oiling themselves up and wearing thongs.
This will not end well.
@13–now I just caught the PTSD because of bad Halfway Night flashbacks.
Damn you. Just damn you. Maybe Jonn will appreciate these selfies I took…
In 1982 My first PSG at Ft Hood was a Sikh with a Turban and beard, he retired a CSM. He sealed his pro mask just like the Sikhs in the indian army did, quick swipe of vaseline and he could stay all day in a CS chamber. To boot Google Bhagat Singh Thind, Acting Sergeant, US Army 1918
@14 NHSParky, my pleasure.
@15: I’m there with ya. I still have flashbacks of seeing a guy in the Neck Gator miniskirt.
Uniformity for the sake of uniformity is pointless. Besides, if a female can serve in the same unit as me, why should she be allowed to long hair but I have to keep mine short? Standards are standards, right? They apply to everyone equally, right?
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if a thousand CSM’s minds were blown at once.
@19: Well, if you want to bring gender into it, then we should have uniform standards for PT as well. Look, if you want to be a long haired hippy, fine, go join the Netherlands military (I believe they’re union, too), because they have allowed long hair on dudes since 1975. Do we want our guys and gals in the military to look the same? Ok, cool, then let the unisex uniform go forth; or are we going to dispense with those, too? like I said in the other post; go buy a jacket at LL Bean and dare to be different. Who says that you have to wear ACUs? Go to Cabelas and get some good RealTree camo, instead. Hell, if you want, put on a feather boa and some big ass loud colored frame sunglasses and call your self Jesse Ventura while you’re at it.
Just because they wore whatever the hell they wanted, and had longer hair than Charro, on the tv show MASH, doesn’t mean that it’s the way it should be.
If you must know, and you really should since you have done 5 tours in A-stan, which tells me you have been in a while; uniformity for the sake of uniformity means that you are all equal, in both appearance and treatment. You are not an individual, but rather a member of a team, and that team has standards for the very simplistic reason of uniformity. You are all equal. You want to be an individual? Join the Ice Capades.
Pfft. My religion requires long hair, a beard(or goatee), shorts, flip-flops, and long tee-shirts. And a Prince-Albert. (google that, ex-PH, but dont click on the image links). Oh, and a thong too. Why not.
geez,
black guys were going to “Office Hours” back in the early
“70s for shaving their heads.
Charged with “Eccentric haircuts”
Hymie
@#21,
In a nutshell, brother.
Oh, and I’ve been to the Ice Capades.
You’d take 5 tours of anywhere to not have to go back.
Hymie
Degradation of the Military well under way. Zulu just proves it (although he seems to advocate it and take joy in it). How long can any standard be justified if exclusions are made for “individuals”? Well Jane didn’t pass the PT test on the same standard as Joe. Why should Joe have to pass it? Jane gets a year leave and guaranteed career advancement to raise a family. Why cant Joe get the same. Who is going to be the first to challenge someone and say “no” you can’t have a pentagram tattooed across your face. No one will because they will be punished by the PC overlords for not being accepting of Joe’s obscure religion only he is an adherent to. So we really will have an “Army of one”. I have said it before, this is the death knell of the last merit based society in this country. These PC masters will not rest until the military is no different than any Federal desk job. Bring on the robots cause who wants to deal with this shit anyway.
I was actually in AIT with a female this applies to. We had a fire drill that caught her in the shower. Up until this time, I had never seen her without sleeves (we were in the same company, but different classes). What I saw quite surprised me (in more ways than one).
She was wearing only a APFU t-shirt, shorts, and shower shoes (hubba hubba). Down her arms and legs were tribal tats. Did I mention she was an Alaskan Native? The Sr. Drill was only pissed about her hair not being up.
In “Today’s Army” she wouldn’t be allowed, even though she was following a cultural belief (I actually spoke to her during breaks from class). So, in that respect, this is a good thing to look at. However, if you give Joe an inch, they will take it and begin oozing for a foot.
US military are. Some of the biggest counter culture hipsters around today yet most of them are to stupid to realize it. On d beardo becomes the normal they’ll switch to something else to show their uniqueness and non conformity because they are special snowflakes. It’s funny too that SF units are used as examples because that is the ultimate counter culture part of our military.
So many rebels without causes.
21Z – damn straight. Make the femals pass the same PT standards, cut their damn hair short – equal pay requires equal dues.
That IS what you meant, nicht wahr?
@28 too bad that is not how curving test results works. Lower performance becomes the standard because it would be unfair to the non hackers. So if anything close to making “females pass the same PTS standards” came to fruition it would be more like the male standard is lowered to the female one. Don’t believe me? Then why were pull ups for female Marines abandoned? Same thing with the hair you mention. If there is an uproar about separate gender grooming standards for male/female (rest assured it is coming based on the “gender is a social construct” crowd’s bleating) the most likely outcome would be male standards are relaxed and we have Brad Pitt wannabees in uniform.
“Political Correctness” is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Old Trooper, I get what you are saying but I fail to see how allowing men to have beards and longer hair would harm the good order and discipline of the Army. If you want to talk about traditions, look back to the Continental Army and Union Army. They had long hair and facial hair but they much more disciplined and tougher than the clean shaven, high and tight Cold War Army.
And no, I don’t like wearing ACUs since the Advanced Combat Uniform is not authorized to be worn in combat.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
– Theodore Dalrymple
Wait until an Hasidic Jew joins the military. That will be a good look.
OLD WAY:
Drill Sergeant: Who did this shit!!!
Private: Private so and so Drill Sergeant!
NEW WAY:
Drill Sergeant: Who did this awful stuff?
Private: The Private with the long Mullet haircut and one earring did it man.
So Mohawk haircuts will now be authorized because “Joe” suddenly changed his religious beliefs?
This is not something new. 1972, I re-upped. Vietnam was winding down. A few officers were wearing beards, longer haircuts and (so help me, patchouli) love beads with short ponytails, because they were short-timers.
So what’s new? Oh, the label. That’s right. It’s all about ‘religion’, right? Yeah, Pantygoners, keep telling yourselves that while you make a bigger mess out of the military than it already is.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Pantygoners, it’s called the military for a reason. It isn’t a civilian force.
@31 you honestly don’t see how uniformity attention to detail and respect for standards relates to good order and discipline? I’ve encountered your type before. You want the standards laxed to show off your cool hair cut, and like the idea of females joining combat arms because you think you’ll get laid.
And how is the “sincerity” of these beliefs judged? Is this going to be a sub course in Infantry officers course? Judging if PVT Richard is spontaneously religious or just didn’t want to wake up early Monday morning and shave before PT.
Uniformity, attention to detail, and respect for standards will be the same. The standards will be the only thing that changes, like when short hair and baby faces became the standard in the 20th century. It’s a new century, and the long haired bearded men that fought to free our country from tyranny would be proud if we uphold their tradition. They would be disappointed that their modern Army looks like a bunch of pansy accountants.
And for the record smoke-check, you don’t know jack shit about me. I have been nothing but civil to everyone here while offering a dissenting opinion. The fact that you feel the need to throw personal insults at me says a lot about who you are.
Change for sake of change good plan dude. How can uniformity be the same if two privates have beards and two do not? Is that uniform guy? Do you know what the definition of uniform is? And I’m not talking about the thing that comes in digital pattern that you wear?
Quick story: About two years ago in DC I stood and stared at the occupy “protest” in McPherson Square as I ate a half smoke and chips. To my displeasure the folks I was with wanted to get close and talk to some of the people. Long story short, we encountered this character who could hardly form coherent sentences. After a few moments I cut to the chase and asked him why he was there and what he was protesting. He went on to tell me he tried to join the Coast Guard but was horrified to learn he would have had to cut his shoulder long blond dreadlocks if he wanted to sign on the dotted line. That was his protest. That was his reason for camping out in squalor in a public park. Is this the type of “individual” we want guarding our coast, or better yet near any type of valuable equiptment? But go on and accept the fantasy that all the military’s rules have no purpose are made up on a whim to make Joe’s live difficult. This clown couldn’t grasp the idea that the military doesn’t conform to you, you conform to it. You give up your individuality when you join. But you, 21Zulu, personally think it would be super cool to have a beard, but where does it end? For the blond dreadlocked trust fund kid I fantasize about it ending with him getting his stupid hair sucked into the tail rotor of a Dolphin and him losing his head literally to match the figurative loss.
@31 First, I thank you for your tours and service so do not take any of this as an “insult”. It is not intended as such. However “pansy accountants” is not the definition of the men I served with. They may have been short haired, baby faces but they gave life and limb looking that way.
The military wants individual thinkers who can be trained to think and act as a cohesive team. From that comes the “effective” combat unit. That is why at basic the first job is to get rid of the “individual mindset” of the “street” by cutting hair and getting into a common uniform and then training them to think as part of a team. Hopefully the outcome is a platoon of individuals who put unit and mission first, before self.
I do not want to sound like I am patronizing you but a platoon of special snowflakes who each has a greater sense of individuality than team, is a recipe for disaster and death.
Leave aside the whole issue of hygiene. Proper and easily maintained hygiene in the field is as important to the troop and their unit as a clean weapon.
Again, not to sound condescending but a combat unit that looks and dresses as they wish, will look like a group of new recruits right off the bus. I am sorry but that is just not the successful military “way”. Standards have to be established, maintained and enforced in order to have military “order”. The standards established now, which are common, are far more easily maintained than standards which effectively are no standards at all. How much harder will the job be on the NCOs and Officers from basic to the combat zone trying to maintain order and discipline without the standards we have.
While I do not want to sound condescending to you, your comments above do sound rather condescending to those of us who have also served our country. I was and am a proud, short haired, baby face.
@38 that’s great. Your civility is recorded. But your opinion is shit. how’s that for a “dissenting opinion”?
And please, Senior Sergeant, C&P where I personally insulted you. I am dying to know when I did such a thing.
Re: “I can’t imagine a beard being hygienic at all.”
Jonn you simply never learned how eat with a beard.
On the balance of this post I can only say how sad this sort of crap makes me.
This PC stuff is doing more damage to our military than Jimmy Carter did.
How far do you guys all for this beards in uniform because it’s historical want to take this? Get rid of trucks, too, because the Army didn’t have them in 1800??
Well, to our 2 squabbling buttheads: no offense, guys, but sniping at each other over hair and beards?
OK, try this: there’s that little thing called safety around mechanical equipment. If you wear dangling stuff like drop earrings or long necklaces, and keep your hair long and flying free, and you are in an environment that has constantly moving parts, e.g., 4-color printing presses, large artillery, tanks on tracks, car engines with fan belts, etc. (enough examples?) the likelihood of that stuff which is flying loose and free getting caught in moving parts and scalping you or severely injuring you is about 98%.
If that is not simple enough, long hair requires a water rinse, even if not shampooed, at least twice a week to remaing clean. And by long hair, I don’t mean someone who has been in the bush for 10 days on patrol. And if you do at least that much, it stinks to high heaven with sweat and oil and that alone can give you away to an enemy if he’s downwind of you.
And may I remind you, Zulu, that Vietnam-type warfare does not apply to the Middle East. The theater of war has moved to the Middle East, where swords are still used as weapons.
As I said elsewhere before you got snippy about it, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar (several centuries apart) recognized that anything giving an enemy an advantage over a soldier, like long hair and beards, should be against regulations.
Long hair, and yeah, beards, too, offer something to grab and whack your head off. It was true back then, and it’s true now. Do not give your enemy any advantage.
The only reason you see photos of soldiers from the Civil War with beards and long hair is that they didn’t have tjhe time or facilities to shave and get regular haircuts like the modern military, especially when they were some place like Little Roundtop, or on one of those long marches through the South.
Is that simple enough for you? Get the chip off your shoulder.
Thanks Ex. I did make the hair vs. equipment comparison in #39 (RE: blond dreadlocks meets tail rotor). But let’s not simplify what I’m squabbling over. Its not hair, its this guy who is a is supposed to be a senior NCO advocating the abandonment of grooming standards for no good reason other than his desire to look cool. And not even for the very few sihks in the military but everyone (see #37) so he doesn’t have to look like a “pansy accountant”. If you want to look cool you should have joined SF man.
@45 Well said and I interpret SF in this regard as San Francisco. Pansy Accountants, my ass! I would like to hear and see him run that by some of the short haired, baby faced men I served with. That would go over like a fart in church.
Call it what it is: The Nidal Malik Hasan Rule.
Ok smoke-check, I’ll play your game.
#41 “And please, Senior Sergeant, C&P where I personally insulted you. I am dying to know when I did such a thing.”
#36 “I’ve encountered your type before. You want the standards laxed to show off your cool hair cut, and like the idea of females joining combat arms because you think you’ll get laid.”
I don’t have a “cool haircut”. I’m 41 and and am way past looking or caring about looking cool. I am also a devoted Christian family man who would never cheat on my wife. I did not join Special Forces because I wanted to look cool, I did it because I felt a higher sense of duty and wanted to serve my country to my utmost ability. Despite the false legends, this is true of 99% of everyone I have served with on SF.
Ex-PH2, I get what you are saying and never insulted you either. If you think I’m a “butt head”, what ever man. I have served 9 tours in the Middle East and never seen one enemy combatant with a sword. The arguement that long hair will allow a sword wielding enemy to grab a soldier and chop his head off is not relevant today. If you can find an example from the GWOT, I will concede your point. Similarly, the arguement that long hair is dangerous around equipment does not take into account the fact that women have served for decades around equipment with long hair. They keep it up in accordance with regulations, as should everyone.
If my opinion that all male soldiers should be allowed to have beards and slightly longer hair has offended you guys, you really should find something better to be offended by. I will never be SMA and will never be in a position to affect Army uniform policies. Seriously guys, it’s just a discussion, not the downfall and ruination of the Army.
@48 I’m not sure how you can take that as a personal insult. People use their beliefs and experiences to justify things, that’s what I see you doing by believing SF’s grooming should work for every line unit. But if the shoe doesn’t fit don’t wear it. Being SF you must be intimately aware that what works on the teams cannot and should not be applied to big Army en masse. Certainly you can admit that?
Zulu, seriously, you haven’t seen those photographs of people being executed by sword in Syria? How come I’ve seen them and you haven’t?
And just because that wasn’t the weapon of choice in the Gulf War, or more recently OIF/OEF, it does not mean the sword, machete, or any other long-blade knife won’t be used in the future.
That was my point. Sorry if I was not clear, but it is NOT irrelevant.
If the Turks are using an archaic weapon like the crossbow, now in their army – which they are doing – what is it that makes you think a sword of any type, long like the knightly sword or short-bladed like the Roman gladius, won’t be used if it’s available. Dismissing a weapon because it isn’t in so-called common use is a glaring error on anyone’s part. It leaves you unprepared to defend against it.