Re: Beards and Hair

--- kaladorn@magma.ca wrote:

> Grandad telling me 
> about having to shine up and get cleaned up while in
> the trenchlines 
> in WW1 because the King was going to drive by and
> they had to all be 
> out in their best, cleaned up, at attention - the

Heh.  We had everything from US SecDef to Italian
brigadier generals visiting us in Kosovo and we never
cleaned up more than normal.  But then again, our
normal was pretty good-looking.

> sod didn't even 
> look out.....). Another modern reason is many gas
> masks don't make 
> accomodations for them. (Makes it hard to get a
> seal). Said masks 
> often don't make good allowance for spectacles
> either (I hate the 
> Army issue combat spectacles) and wearing contacts
> in a chem-bio (or 
> even very dirty) environment is anathema. 

Actually, the way the US Army handles it is by issuing
specially made optical inserts put into the mask
itself.
 
> distress. And hair (beard or cranial) is an ideal
> living place for 
> all manner of lovely little biting contagious
> vermin.

When I last went to NTC, I got a basic trainee haircut
and kept it that way--no heat stroke because we're
wearing headgear the entire time, and sand mixed with
sweat is hideously uncomfortable.  Grew it back out
the last week (reconstitution) but I generally do that
any time I'll be playing Army for more than 2 weeks.  
 
John

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