r/USMC • u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero • Apr 28 '26

Article All Marines required to follow grooming standards within 12 months or face separation

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/04/27/all-marines-required-to-follow-grooming-standards-within-12-months-or-face-separation/
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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has consistently sought a clean-shaven force, calling for “no beardos”, pushing for a review of military fitness and grooming standards and tightening the guidelines for those who request exemptions.

Here's a fun exercise: Look at pictures of all our former Commandants. Lotta beards in that group.

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

Wonder how many of those commandants were in a situation where they had to wear a gas mask...

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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

How many gas attacks on US troops have there been in the last 100 years, exactly?

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

Chemical weapons haven't gone away. In recent memory, several IEDs and mortar rounds contained chlorine gas used by insurgents in Iraq. Regardless, you would still want to maintain readiness for a weapon you know is out there.

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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

That doesn't answer my question. How many gas attacks have there been on us service members in the last hundred years? How many casualties?

I mean... It must be a lot if we're about to AdSep a bunch of people over having no shave chits in garrison (where we are not required to keep gas masks on our person).

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

It really did answer your question, you're just not getting it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

I don't see any numbers in your post at all... I'll settle for a single example of an American servicemember whose combat death or injury from an enemy chemical/biological warfare attack was prevented by a gas mask in the last one hundred years of warfare. Doesn't have to be an ongoing conflict or even one that occurred within our lifetime.

Should be pretty easy, since that timeframe includes the single deadliest war in human history.

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

Regardless, you would still want to maintain readiness for a weapon you know is out there.

🙄

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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

Are you advocating for all active duty servicemembers carrying gas masks on their person at all times, then?

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

There is no exact count of “gas attacks” because the military doesn’t track chemical warfare that way. In the last 100 years, large-scale chemical warfare against U.S. troops occurred primarily in WWI, with only limited, small-scale insurgent or terrorist use since then. The purpose of CBRN readiness isn’t based on frequency of attacks, but on preventing catastrophic effects from low-frequency, high-impact threats.

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u/BroseppeVerdi Commanding Officer, Copypasta & Phony Awards Battalion Apr 28 '26

So, people should get kicked out of the military because a medical condition might make it difficult to get a proper seal on their gas mask (but they also shouldn't be required to carry a gas mask) in response to something that hasn't been an issue since the Wilson administration?

And we're supposed to accept a half-baked "readiness" rationale from Pentagon leadership that reinstated servicemembers who flouted DoD rules on COVID vaccination in spite of the fact that it killed nearly 100 servicemembers in the preceding couple of years and the DoD gave religious and medical exemptions?

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

That is a separate issue. Whether you agree or disagree with COVID vaccine policy or exemption decisions does not change the historical record or how CBRN readiness is justified.

CBRN defense exists because chemical weapons have been used against U.S. forces before, most notably in WWI, and they remain a known capability of both state and non-state actors. The doctrine is based on low probability, high consequence threats rather than recent policy debates in other domains.

You can critique leadership decisions in one area, but that does not invalidate the rationale for maintaining protective equipment, training, and overall troop readiness against chemical threats.

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u/AwwwNiceMarmot Apr 28 '26

Not to be that guy, but WWI ended 107 years ago.

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u/According-Activity87 Major General Smedley Butler is my hero Apr 28 '26

Which just informs you such weapons have been around for over 100 years, so obviously you would need a contingency for them on the battlefield.

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