There’s a current rule against entering the Commissary or the AAFEs stores in PT UNIFORM, but this is the first time I’ve heard that it applies to dependents as well. I’ve seem tha many ladies going shopping after working out without issues.
I regularly shop at the local commissary and for that facility and the BX there are no rules that would bar the way the kid is dressed. My kids were dressed that way back in the 80s when going to the commissary and other base facilities as well.
The last strict dress codes I remember goes back to the 70s.
In 1970 a base commander at an army base banned a medically retired and disabled/wheelchair Viet Nam vet from the commissary because he had a beard. That made national news and the overnight outcry brought down the SecDef on the colonel and he was retired as of the phone call and had one week to clear the base. I suspect this is something akin to that fiasco.
People are amazed when I tell them about the Army dress codes of the sixties -
No athletic shoes, shorts or t-shirts unless actively engaged in athletic or PT activities or in transit to same.
No blue jeans or t-shirts in the PX, commissary or base theaters.
Button down sport shirts and slacks or class A uniform when leaving post except for troops living off post who were allowed to wear fatigues going to and from work.
No fatigues allowed in any civilian establishment off post - no stopping at the off-post convenience store in your fatigues on the way home.
The Army’s rules were strict but not much different from the general social guidelines of the time.
The world has changed quite a lot, and while some of you think it is great that you may now get on an airplane or go to a nice restaurant in the same clothes that you wore to change the oil in the family jalopy, I, for one, believe we have lost something for it.