Back in the early 1980s, one of my brother’s first assignments after graduating from West Point was to a base in Turkey. Military personnel were to wear civilian clothes off base, and there were no close-shave haircuts. They were supposed to look like tourists when off base.
I was naive back then and thought those precautions were a bit excessive to do in a country that was our ally until my brother told me that his predecessor had been killed there.
Those are the exact same orders I received in 1980. I was on The U.S.S. Illusive 448 MSO; a Minesweeper, a wooden ship that was based in Charleston, South Carolina.
We somehow sailed that tub all the way to Europe. We stopped for a port call in Izmir, Turkey. We were told, even warned not to wear our uniform into town, or do anything to attract undue attention to ourselves as we visited the restaurants and/or bars. I followed instructions, and did not go out in a big noisy cluster of other Americans. If Turkey has become such a lousy, hatefull host country, we should have no port calls at all, except to refuel, and then, nobody should be leaving the ship.
I don’t know how likely this is in today’s Navy, where so much has changed.