Many years ago, I was a brigade surgeon for a mechanized infantry brigade. I hadn’t thought about PFB for years, but I recall a significant chunk of Sick Call time spent dealing with treating it and writing waivers for “clippers, not razors.”
I’m a white guy and have this. Thick curly hair.
On deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan it was standard for us to have a close cropped beard. Made my life much more pleasant.
I personally think the clean shaven policy is stupid. It’s a vestige of when gas masks didn’t work with a beard and is a recent (WWI) development. That’s hasn’t been a problem since the 1970s.
Let men be men and grow beards.
Agreed. Resume conscription, we won’t have these problems...and the Romney, Trump & Sununu families will finally put men into the fight.
I don’t know the history of this, but it was a waiver back when I was in - 69-71.
They can use “Magic Shave.” In the prison I worked at, every black inmate used this rotten-egg smelling paste to remove facial hair. After applying it, they used their ID card to scrape it off. Stunk up the entire 84 cell block.