The top Marine Corps general has decided to allow his troops to wear bracelets commemorating friends killed in action, settling a debate that has roiled some in the force.
Gen. James F. Amos planned to announce Tuesday that Marines can wear the KIA bracelets, usually thin rubber or metal bands bearing the names of the fallen, said Capt. Gregory Wolf, a Marine Corps spokesman.
The bracelets technically were not allowed under Marine Corps uniform regulations. Nevertheless, some troops have been wearing them while in uniform, and some but not all commanders have been telling them to stop.
That put some Marines in a dilemma: On one side was the Corps’ tradition of good discipline and following orders. On the other, the searing emotions of a force hit with rising casualties as it helped reverse insurgent momentum in Afghanistan’s southern Taliban stronghold.
“I never take it off,” said Timothy Kudo, a former Marine captain who is a community organizer for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He returned in March from duty in Afghanistan and served in 2009 in Iraq.
Mr. Kudo’s bracelet carries the name of Staff Sgt. Javier Ortiz-Rivera, a platoon sergeant killed by a Taliban bomb Nov. 16 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
“He made his wife promise that if he was killed, she would spend a large portion of his life insurance on a party, celebration, for his Marines,” Mr. Kudo said. When they went to Ortiz-Rivera’s memorial at Camp Lejeune, N.C., she gave the bracelets to more than 70 people.
Mr. Kudo said of his black rubber bracelet with purple lettering: “It’s a constant reminder for me of what better men than myself have done for this country, and every day I think about it. I know that because … a lot of guys didn’t make it back, I need to live every day to the best of my ability.
“To ask someone to take something like that off, it’s disrespectful to them,” Mr. Kudo said. “And it’s disrespectful to the person who died.”
Others said there should be no arguing about a Marine’s duty.
“The regulation is the regulation,” said Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “Until it’s changed, it has to be adhered to. The Marines are the most disciplined of all the services, and [the bracelet] is not a uniform item.”
The regulation on Marine uniforms does not specifically mention the KIA bracelets among jewelry authorized for wear when in uniform. It says Marines can wear watches, but they must be inconspicuous; necklaces must be worn inside the uniform and not visible; men can’t wear earrings, but women can wear one per ear. Both sexes can wear inconspicuous rings — one to a hand, but not on their thumbs.
The bracelet prohibition has been the same for men and women in the Marine Corps, a force of some 202,000 that is just 6 percent women.
All the service branches have similar rules on jewelry, though they parted ways on some specifics, including on bracelets.
Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. wears a bracelet in the official portrait of him that was hung in the Pentagon several months after his spring retirement. It clearly shows the name of Sgt. 1st Class Randall L. Lamberson, who died in Iraq in 2006.
The Navy allows sailors to wear one “wristwatch/bracelet” on each arm. The Air Force bans bracelets “espousing support for a cause, philosophy, individual or group,” with the exception of those for prisoners of war, the missing in action and the killed in action.
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