![]() ![]() Like Wright, they might just be working as they’ve been taught within an institution that was built and is still largely led by one group of people. That opposition may not always be because leadership is explicitly racist. The matter is currently under investigation by base leadership, but it seems to underline Wright’s point that many people with power in the Air Force will find ways to oppose airmen with beards even if those beards are allowed in the service. “You currently have a shaving waiver which isn’t a professional image, and I think the air force is looking for somebody of white complexion and with the image that the air force needs.” “We personally do not feel as if you are a good choice for the squadron,” the technical sergeant said. Instead, “they’re going to shake their heads and find a way to write people with beards off.”Ī mere eight days after the panel, a White technical sergeant at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona allegedly texted a Black senior airman with a shaving waiver saying that he was not being considered for a position because “the Air Force is looking for somebody of white complexion,” according to a text exchange shared on the popular Facebook page Air Force amn/snco/nco. The leaders who are biased against beards in the Air Force are not going to figure out how to work with a new policy allowing beards, Wright cautioned. “I had opportunities to hire all kinds of folks and I was adamant about not hiring somebody with a shaving waiver, just because I fell into that category of ‘this is Air Force policy, it’s not professional.’” “I was the typical senior leader chief that didn’t think airmen with a shaving waiver belonged in the front office,” he said in April on a panel discussion on male grooming standards in the Air Force. of the Air Force Kaleth Wright, said he spent 29 of his nearly 32-year career opposed to facial hair in his service. Even one of the branch’s most beloved former senior leaders, retired Chief Master Sgt. ![]() Still, even if the Air Force conducts a study and if the study finds that trim eighth-inch beards do not affect gas mask seals and if the Air Force abolishes its prohibition on beards, there would still be decades of institutional bias against beards standing in the way. If the Air Force does follow through with a study, it could be the first service to do so: Ritchie said he was not aware of any other service conducting such a test. While there are plenty of studies that show the deleterious effect of facial hair on gas mask or respirator seals in the civilian world, there are no studies Ritchie could find that gauge how neatly trimmed beards hold up in modern-day M-50 military gas masks. But more than a century later, there appears to be little direct evidence that links facial hair to poor gas mask fit. On the Army side, it is widely written that the service began prohibiting facial hair to fit with gas mask seals during and after World War I, though this reporter could not find official documents to support this. This led to sailors shaving their heads in protest and threatening to send their whiskers to Watkins, USNI News wrote, but the policy remained. “Lehman said that master chiefs had been complaining that beards made the Navy look ‘extremely un-uniform’ so it was decided that having clean-shaven sailors would bring ‘a general sharpening of appearance.’” Sailors take a group photo aboard the USS Pensacola, a cruiser that fought in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Order online or call AGM anytime for all your safety supplies.“However, the blunt-speaking Secretary John Lehman said that it was simply due to aesthetics,” USNI News wrote. For complete Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical protection we have new and surplus NBC suits, hoods, gloves, boots and more. We offer brand new military masks like the MSA Millennium. Many popular civilian gas masks are modeled after military units, like the MSA Advantage 1000. Before you purchase a cheap, used mask take a look at our new masks from MSA, SGE and more. AGM supplies hundreds of Police Departments and Fortune 500 companies with gas masks, gas mask filters, and all types of survival gear from NBC protective suits to Potassium Iodide and medical kits. ![]()
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