I wrote earlier about my Mustache Of Honor, and in my research found that facial follicles cultivated as ornamentation in the military have a rich history of their own...Depending on their wearers' point in history's timeline and their position on the globe, military facial hair may be required, discouraged, permitted, encouraged, ignored or outright banned...
As usual, Wikipedia is the go-to source for finding military entities which have rules governing hair growth, and how they are applied...Whether or not the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, was the first battlefield commander to order his soldiers to shave remains shrouded in mystery, but it is clear that grooming regulations are mandatory to ensure military discipline...
When I reached my basic training camp at the beginning of my USAF service, and was issued the gear deemed necessary for military life, I was told in no uncertain terms that I would begin each day by closely shaving the front portion of my head from the top of my ears to my collarbone, regardless of whether any hair was visible or not...In my case very little which qualified as hair was visible on my face before shaving, a condition which soon changed...
Even a historical figure who is universally recalled with loathing and disgust can claim a place in upper lip hair history...Through a clerical error on the part of the German government, Austrian draft evader Adolf Hitler was inducted into the Bavarian Army in 1914 instead of being deported to Austria for prosecution, and rose to the rank of Gefreiter...
Some photos exist depicting the future despot in uniform at the battlefront sporting a large, flowing handlebar mustache...Whether or not he still displayed this growth, or whether he used a gas mask in 1918 when he and other soldiers in his unit fell victim to a mustard gas attack leaving him temporarily blinded and speechless, is unclear...
What is known is that such a large lip encumbrance makes it difficult if not impossible to achieve a proper seal between the face and the mask, and is one reason why mustache size is restricted in modern armies...Whatever the case at the time of his incapacitation, it is known that for the rest of his life, he was only seen wearing the small "toothbrush" style which will fit under a military gas mask...
Current US Army guidelines are strict in what is permitted or disallowed, but such was not always the case...General Ambrose Burnside even lent his name to the growth between his nose and ears...During the Vietnam War, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, in one of his famous Z-grams, relaxed the grooming regulations for Navy personnel in a battle zone...
The popularity of Col. Olds' mustache, which inspired my earlier article, led to a new tradition of which I was unaware...Mustache March has become an annual event in which Air Force personnel are allowed, and sometimes encouraged, to cultivate facial growth...
Other members of the military took a different approach to the event by protesting it to be sexist and discriminatory in nature...Notably, Maj. Jennifer Holmes and Navy Cmdr. Sara Zak (Ret.) took umbrage, with Cmdr. Zak going so far as to demand Gen. Welsh step down and rescind his branch-wide smackdown to all USAF personnel to pack away their shaving gear for a month, and "have a little fun"...
I attribute this to jealousy due to their inability to grow facial hair, a condition possibly inherited from their mothers...It's unclear whether either sought treatments from the base medical officers to correct this condition...In any case, I'd better go check for messages at Bristlr...
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