The Glade 4.0

Tripped across this bit of new today. Bold is mine.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/24/justice/t ... ?hpt=hp_t3



Why the **** does it matter if he has a **** beard while he's being tried? Why are we **** around trying to determine if we can forcibly shave it? Just let him have the beard and get the **** show on the road guys!

Because he is still a member of the military and is required to be clean-shaven. Beards are not permitted for males in the military without a no-shaving profile.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to "just get on with the trial." He will comply with military standards. Period. It is highly prejudicial to good order and discipline to allow someone who is already on trial for a serious offense to flout the other rules of the military just to hurry things along.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

He's being court martialed. Its a UCMJ thing.

As far as I am concerned though, slit his throat and be done with his worthless ***.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Meh, not sure I agree. Just tack it on to the list of infractions and get it over with.

I can't seriously believe that any of his actions are going to affect the "good order and discipline" of the military at this point.

It doesn't work like that. You're not released from the military because you've been charged with a crime. This would be an exceedingly bad idea for people charged with offenses for which they are found innocent, or those that are charged with misdemeanor offenses for which they may be allowed to return to a unit after punishment.



Sending the message that you get to flout the regulations once you've shot up a clinic (or otherwise committed a serious crime under military law) in order to move things along more quickly is definitely bad for good order and discipline. No one else charged with a crime in the military gets to just decide they don't want to follow the rules any more; he shouldn't either.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It should be noted that there are procedures for religious accommadation in the wear of beards in the military. However, Hassan didn't decide it was important to wear a beard until after he was already charged with murder, so there's no reason any attention should be paid to this request.

The regulation against beards is for 3 reasons:

1) Hygeine
2) General appearance
3) Use of the gas mask

The last one bears special mention. While there has been some indication that some gas masks can, in fact, be sealed even with a beard through the use of vaseline, indications are that others cannot and it may not even be true for all gas masks of the same type because different faces have different shapes and different hair. Length, in particular, may be an issue.

The other problem is that one cannot walk around in many tactical environments with one's face vaselined all the time, and still maintain hygeine, not to mention maintaining the vaseline adequetely to still get a seal. It defies common sense to think that if a chemical attack occurs, one will rapidly vaseline one's face up and then still get the gas mask on. The time to don a mask in an attack is mere seconds.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

filtering air through activated charcoal and other filters > filtering it through a few strands of hair when you breathe in.

Hygiene doesn't make sense since ingrown hairs can get infected and tons of people who shaved got ingrown hairs.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Hygeine certainly does make sense. Soldiers that don't shave in environments where regular showering isn't available will be filthy under a beard, and the beard is around the mouth which is a major disease vector and where your food goes in.

For those soldiers that get ingrown hairs, a shaving profile (medical exception) is available. The profile should specify an appropriate trim length. Shaving profiles are most common for black soldiers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well that exception didn't seem to be common knowledge with the bunch of guys who needed one. 20+ ingrowns every time on many.

Also a damp rag with water on a trimmed beard is just dandy for keeping "filth" away. Worried about bugs well just follow it up with one with some gas or kerosene on it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It's not uncommon that basic trainees don't know things.



Or, you can just not allow beards and not have to worry about this. Soldiers often neglect field hygeine; NCOs have to enforce it. The less there is to enforce in a combat environment the better when everyone is already exhausted and has a lot to worry about, to say nothing of the fact that some NCOs aren't that great with enforcing standards to begin with.

I also question if a wet rag is as "dandy" as you claim, or if it's really a good idea to be wiping your face with gasoline. I'll take the opinion of a PA on soldiers "going native."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Worked for marines on IJ.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

At which time beards were already prohibited. If the tactical situation on Iwo Jima meant that regular shaving was impossible or even simply too difficult to do when weighed against other concerns, then obviously alternate measures had to be taken. This would have been of necessity, not because it was just as good as shaving.

Disease has been a problem for militaries throughout history. Measures to control it that may seem trivial in everyday life can be important in combat. Another example would be cooks; unless the tactical situation prohibits, cooks must shower daily. Medics too. Field sanitation is a major issue in the military. You'd be aatounded how filthy soldiers get if standards are not enforced.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Let's set aside a moment the "why does his bead have to be shaven". I'm more interested in the "forcibly shaven" do regs allow for this and if so what's the debate. If not then there's nothing we can do about it and we just might have to let him pass (or have the trial without him present.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

The regs not only allow it.. they require it.

Then shave his nasty face and get him on his way then. what's the holdup?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I think its obvious why it matters:

It is a high publicity case and the guy is a Muslim thus we ignore our own rules and have to be culturally and religiously sensitive.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You can't forcibly shave a soldier, or do much of anything forcibly, without due process. This is the due process. The only reason it's a big deal is because the case is already in the public eye. Everything about the legal aspects of it is an internal military matter, but because of the high-profile events surrounding it, we're getting a play-by-play. I doubt very much he's the first guy up for a General Courts-Martial that refused to shave and had it done forcibly.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't get why this isn't called an act of terrorism. Well I do get it, I just think the administration is trying like hell to keep it from being considered one

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I suspect (emphasis on suspect) that the reason is that calling it an act of terrorism would imply that any Muslim service member is a terrorism risk. To my knowledge there have been exactly 2 Muslim service members that have engaged in acts that could reasonably be called terrorism against the military since 9/11.

There's a serious issue there. On the one hand, Muslim service members should not be treated as terrorism risks by default. On the other hand, as MAJ Hasan illustrates, there is, in fact, a risk that Muslim service members will see current operations as attacks on "fellow muslims". Muslims are a small minority of troops and thus one of them is a greater risk, statistically, than larger groups.

In August, 2009 (3 months before the shootings) only 3409 active duty troops identified themselves as Muslim. Interestingly, Hasan was not one of them; military members have no obligation whatsoever to disclose their faith group.

Note that in Kosovo operations, despite operating against nominally Christian forces, no Christian soldiers engaged in acts of terrorism.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Part of the issue there is that Muslims in many parts of the world don't separate their religion from their government. They are one and the same, so an attack against the government is an attack on Islam. Most Christians don't associate their government and religion so closely.

This should also be a lesson for why the separation of church and state is so important to maintain.

That is correct. In that regard, the Muslims of former Yugoslavia are exceptional.



Not really. It is not political philosophy nor government mandate that stops Christians from attacking their fellow soldiers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."