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It has been wielded as a weapon of intimidation in conflicts throughout history. More recently, it has been subject to an outright ban by the top brass.
The beard — only in its most neatly trimmed form, mind you — has a groundswell of support at the grassroots/stubble level in military forces around the world. In the U.S., a historic recruiting shortfall has left Pentagon leaders scrambling to find new ways to fill the ranks.
Most top military officials vehemently defend the decades-old status quo on facial hair, but some services seem to have opened the door to change amid an increasingly vocal protest. An online petition calling on the Army to allow beards, started in 2021, now has more than 107,000 signatures.
The movement has stretched well beyond American shores to some unlikely places. Just months before his death in a mysterious airplane explosion in August, Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin called the Russian army’s beard ban an “absurd” policy. He said supporters of the ban were clinging to “archaisms from the 1960s.”
Few are calling for complete facial hair anarchy. It seems inconceivable that an array of handlebar mustaches, mutton-chop sideburns and ZZ Top-style scruffiness would suddenly become common in the ranks of the world’s most disciplined fighting forces.
Using history as a guide, analysts say the highly restrictive policies will eventually get a trim.
“I think the standard has always been that they want the military to look clean-shaven. It has to do with looking clean and tidy. But at various points, that has been relaxed,” said Alun Withey, a professor at the University of Exeter who studies the history of male facial hair trends.
“It happened in the 19th century, partly because of ideas about what a manly ideal should be,” he said in an interview. “At various points around the Napoleonic wars and again around the mid-19th century, beards became symbols of the rugged, ultra-masculine guy.”
Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee sported beards, and most of their Civil War commanders also had facial hair.
“The idea is, you stick these hairy guys at the front of your marching army and it signals to the enemy that these are the guys that are going to kick your ass,” Mr. Withey said.
In some instances, he said, armies provided false beards to the unfortunate soldiers who couldn’t grow their own.
The U.S. military’s modern beard policy has its roots in the World War I era. Facial hair was considered an impediment to a properly fitted mask, which would be crucial in the event of a chemical gas attack. For that reason, the Army prohibited beards, kicking off a policy that mostly remained in place for more than a century. The service does allow beards for religious or medical reasons and some neatly trimmed mustaches.
The Air Force also bans full beards with some exceptions and allows well-groomed mustaches.
The Navy allowed beards for much of its history but banned them in the mid-1980s, as did the Coast Guard. Those policies mostly aligned all of the military services, creating a more uniform appearance for those in uniform.
Many of the exceptions are on religious grounds. In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of two Sikh Americans seeking to join the Marine Corps without shaving their beards.
Elite Special Forces personnel have relaxed facial hair standards.
Relax the rules?
The guidelines differ significantly from country to country. NATO ally Canada allows its troops to have well-groomed beards. So do the Netherlands and Italy. France mostly prohibits beards on active-duty troops.
The British Royal Air Force allows beards on a case-by-case basis.
“A request must be made to the commanding officer in writing prior to any member of the RAF growing a beard. Only full beards that are kept short and neatly trimmed will be permitted. The station warrant officer, on behalf of the station commander, will act as the final arbiter of what is, or is not, acceptable,” the policy reads.
The British army also allows beards on an individual basis but appears much more restrictive. Beards are typically allowed only for religious reasons. The British army is reportedly revisiting that policy, partly to help address a historic recruiting crisis on that side of the Atlantic.
In the U.S., proponents say the beard is merely one aspect of a broader move to rethink and relax specific rules and regulations to attract a wider pool of talent.
“With all of the progressive change in the U.S. Army’s policy on uniform wear and appearance, it is only right that soldiers should be able to grow beards in a garrison environment. If earrings, pony tails, and nail polish do not take away from the image of professionalism, then a beard should not either,” the pro-beard petition on Change.org reads.
Key decision-makers aren’t convinced.
“Is the beard relevant? Is there a need for a beard other than personal comfort to not shave?” Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Ramon Colon-Lopez, who until recently served as the senior enlisted adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a Facebook discussion in March.
“If you want to look cute with your skinny jeans and your beard, by all means, do it someplace else,” he said, according to the news outlet Stars and Stripes. “But quit wasting our time on something that doesn’t have anything to do with kicking the enemy’s ass.”
Indeed, specialists say it’s worth considering whether a change to facial hair regulations is truly the best way to pull in more recruits.
“What they’re worried about is the thin end of the wedge,” said Mr. Withey, the University of Exeter professor. “If you allow beards, do you say, ‘Well, if you smoke a few joints now and then, we don’t have a problem with that?’ If we let the standards go completely, do we lose some control?”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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