The Army released new uniform and appearance standards today that largely erase the total hash that Joe Biden's Army made of the situation.

In 2021, Biden's Army released a relaxed set of grooming standards. Some of the innovations included allowing hair highlights, exotic cuts in hair, nail polish for women, and a very amorphous hairstyle guide that field leaders found nearly impossible to interpret, much less enforce. 

Most of these changes will be inside baseball, but stick around to the end for the ones I think are critical in moving the Army forward.

 Army Grooming Update Graphic  by  streiff at redstate 

The biggest changes here are that women can no longer wear lipstick or nail polish. On the other hand, neither can men. The ponytail hairstyle can only be worn in combat or physical training uniforms. It can't be worn with the Army Green uniform. Hair highlights are out for everyone. Where women could wear their hair down to the "middle of the shoulder blade," now it can't go below six inches from the top of the collar. Generally speaking, it ends with the more extravagant hair, makeup, and nails that have become sort of a mark of Biden's Army. I didn't see any hard guidance on beards and the tattoo policy, as far as I can tell, remains the same. As my personal axe to grind, I can't understand why, if everyone can be assigned to all jobs, everyone doesn't have the same grooming standards.

Also changing is the way the "fat boy" program is administered. If you're in the program, it will be harder to evade discharge.

Where the new guidance falls, in my opinion, is that our senior officers and noncommissioned officers will continue to look like North Korean generals.

The proliferation of medals and badges has led to many of our military leaders looking clownish.

There must be a logical upward bound to the number of medals and geegaws allowed on the dress uniform.

The good news is that General Shinseki's black beret experiment seems to be at an end. The new regulation states, "The black beret will not be worn with any variation of the AGSU." AGSU is the Army Green Service Uniform, the new dress uniform based on that used in WWII. Wear is already prohibited with the Army Combat Uniform, except for events designated by the local commander. So the black beret is still authorized, but there are basically no circumstances where it can be worn.

All in all, it is a good, tentative first step toward making the word "uniform" mean something. 

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