There is a reason for everything in the military. Uniforms are supposed to be, well, uniform. It helps unit cohesiveness. Short hair also is part of this. Plus it takes less maintenance. In Basic by the time we got the the barber (I think it was a week in) we couldn't wait to get it all cut off; we didn't have time to take care of longer hair.
The beard ban though has one very important reason for continuing; gas masks. With facial hair the mask cannot form a barrier to the chem of bio agents.
The Sikh people are good citizens, peaceful and productive. However if they will not conform to the demands of the uniform in the military they must not be allowed to serve. In addition there are many Sikhs who do not dress in traditional garb and do cut their hair and shave. In the Milwaukee area we learned allot about their culture after a recent temple shooting....
I hadn’t thought about the gas mask issue until I saw this post on the UK site
” More concerned with there beards, to mke chemical warfare gear ie gas masks effective you need to be clean shaven so an airtight seal can be made, beards and stubble prevent this from happeing, so then bearded sikhs charge into combat get gassed and become casualties, and there mates have t stop what there doing to casi-vac them, putting themselves in danger as well. One rule for one, one rule for another.”
- Gareth , Soham, 02/12/2012 13:22
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241656/Sikh-soldier-Jatinderpal-Singh-Bhullar-guard-Buckingham-Palace-bearskin.html#ixzz2ErTOIqwK
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Most everybody would agree with you, but as I pointed out, there is some kind of cult like thing in regards to Sikhs, who knows why.
Does anybody remember what happened with the American Orthodox Jew who asked for an exemption to the clean-shaven rule? Last I heard, he had been denied. He must not have been a “good guy”.