Yet another "anti-military" article from people who clearly don't understand the military.

Hi.. It's me again. Army Veteran. Showing up in the comments of another military article because there is clear and obvious reasons why this is happening that has nothing to do with Trump (Not sure why so many other commenters jump on this every time). Claiming that this is racist is crazy when the purpose and reason for it is innately to stop people from dying unnecessarily. If you think this is racism, I'd argue that it's not. I'd also argue that ignoring the medical problem can actually kill those you think you're protecting from "racism".

This is not new. While I was in (primarily under Obama) people with problematic beard hair would need to be medically evaluated. At one point I was evaluated as razor bumps kept coming up for a little while (cleared up eventually though). The primary reason for the military caring about it is because NBC masks need to fit particularly well in order for them to do their jobs. For those who don't know what NBC means, gas masks. Nothing sucks more than doing gas chamber training and getting a mask that doesn't fit well. Considering the current world capabilities, it would be a disaster to send a unit out and have them all get nailed with mustard gas and have just the "black" (quoting this because it's inaccurate, I saw many people need a profile over bad shaves. a plurality were actually black) people die because with hair, you can't get a good seal, and with the bumps, you can't get a good seal.

Now up to this point, I've said terms like "profile" and "medically evaluated", none of these things innately remove you from service unless it's extreme (or fails to clear up over significant time). The only thing moving forward is that if it doesn't clear up they want to medically discharge you from service. Here's the rub though, you can't have soldiers that can't put on NBC masks and keep them deployable. It's a basic core task. War is war, it's nasty. The headline that gets written in the worst case scenario is "Black soldiers die in mass NBC attack because mask seals don't work" is the alternative here. This consideration HAS to be addressed when you expect war to kick up (Iran, anyone?). This is a problem... And in my time, I've seen a handful (very few) people hide behind this condition to do less work than their peers, especially to dodge deployable statuses and NBC chamber training.

Lastly, if you read the article "The recent policy update under Brig. Gen. David R. Everly reversed a 2022 rule". This "rule" is very new and was likely found to harm wartime readiness after trying it out. The people getting kicked out would be relatively new recruits in their first enlistment. I can only imagine how much worse their experience was in many training exercises because of the ill-fitting masks, and honestly, I don't really see an alternative that doesn't potentially sacrifice their lives should they deploy. These soldiers will have already served sufficiently to obtain their benefits and it would be a medical discharge, which is not a dishonorable discharge. They would keep any benefits that they had obtained through their service.

And to preempt an argument... "there's no study that says beards/razor bumps interfere with gas masks"... There are. Most of them say minimal beards/hair is fine (less than 1/16th of an inch) to get a mask seal, where 1/8 can already lead to issues. But it's understudied. The risk of getting it wrong is people's lives.

Edit: Typo

Edit2: Reported by a blahaj.zone user...

Reason: Misinformation, dog whistles, and holding water for fascists

Lmfao. Apparently pointing out that this was a thing for a long time and restating information in the article itself is misinformation...