In the early part of the 20th century, the bloody killing fields in France and Belgium were chewing up an entire generation. War in the Industrial Age stole life on a scale previously unimagined. Amidst the fetid trench warfare that characterized that tortuous time, the world’s engineers strived to contrive tools to give their nation’s fighting men an edge on the battlefield.
The M1918A2 BAR was the warhorse Squad Automatic Weapon for U.S. infantry forces throughout three wars.
John Moses Browning was the most gifted gun designer who ever drew breath. Born five years before the American Civil War, Browning held 128 firearms-related patents when finally he breathed his last in Liege, Belgium, in 1926. If we had any sense as a nation (we don’t), we would carve his likeness into a mountain someplace.
John Browning was particularly busy in the early part of the 20th century. He bodged up the 1911 pistol along with the M1917 belt-fed, water-cooled machinegun. Based upon specs purportedly crafted by Black Jack Pershing himself, he also designed the 12.7x99mm/.50 BMG round and the beastly M2 machinegun that fired it.
Grunts would frequently strip down their BARs by removing the bipod and buttstock monopod in an effort at saving weight.
Though originally intended to defeat WW1-era balloons, variations of Browning’s inimitable Ma Deuce heavy machinegun eventually armed every American combat aircraft of WWII.
He also drew up plans for something radically fresh and new. He called this invention the Browning Machine Rifle.
The WWI-era web gear included a buttstock cup to help support the BAR during “walking fire.”
Was It a Mistake?
The Browning Machine Rifle was based upon a thoroughly discredited concept. Military planners felt that “walking fire” might be a good idea on the modern battlefield. In this hypothetical world, soldiers armed with repeating weapons would stand erect and stride purposefully toward enemy positions firing a round from the hip every time a certain foot hit the ground. Naturally, this idea arose with the French. It turned out that in the real world actual flesh and blood soldiers were none too keen to put this dubious tactic into practice. It did nonetheless still birth a most remarkable firearm.
While large and heavy, the BAR was a fearsome weapon in the hands of American troops.
Browning’s Machine Rifle was a monster of a thing that seemed better scaled to David’s Goliath than to normal folk. At 15.5 lbs. and nearly four feet long, the newly christened BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) was a selective fire beast that fed from 20-round steel box magazines.
Cycling at around 550 rpm on full auto and firing from the open bolt, the BAR offered a quantum improvement over the bolt-action rifles of the day as well as such abominable light machinegun designs like the French Chauchat.
The fully automatic BAR fires from the open bolt position.
The web gear issued along with those early BAR’s included four double-magazine pouches, a pair of 1911 pouches and a fascinating tin cup scaled to accept the buttstock of the BAR. The theory was that a gunner might lodge the buttstock in this cup and run the gun from the hip as he strolled leisurely toward the Huns’ chattering Maxims. Subsequent WWII-vintage web gear just had six double-magazine pouches and eschewed the cup.
The BAR, shown here in Korea, proved itself to be a capable warrior. Image: NARA
Generations
Some 43,000 early M1918 BARs were shipped to Europe by the end of WWI. Of those, 17,664 were issued to the American Expeditionary Forces, and 4,608 actually saw action. These were the variants that were later stolen by Clyde Barrow from National Guard armories and used on his reign of terror across the American heartland during the gangster era.
The BAR was just one of John Moses Browning’s many creations.
A modification dubbed the M1918A1 sort of fizzled, but by 1939 the basic BAR chassis had been upgraded to the M1918A2 standard. A great many earlier guns were arsenal rebuilt into the more modern configuration. A2 upgrades included a bulky folding bipod, a redesigned flash hider, reimagined furniture and fresh entrails. The new three-position selector offered safe, slow and fast options. The cyclic rate on slow was around 350 rpm, while the fast rate was about 550 rpm.
The demand for walnut for rifle stocks threatened to denude American forests, so Firestone Latex and Rubber developed a synthetic substitute for the M1918A2 BAR. These early composite buttstocks were molded from a fabric-reinforced plastic that rendered fine service. Most wartime BARs sported this sort of furniture.
The BAR’s complicated ladder rear sight is graduated out to 1,500 yards.
The M1918A2 ultimately weighed 20 lbs., a full 4.5 lbs. more than the original M1918. As a result, a great many BAR men in WWII removed their bipods, monopods and sometimes flash suppressors in an effort at cutting down weight. The carrying handle that affixes around the barrel was adopted very late in the war and didn’t really see service until Korea.
Practical Magic
The BAR is a massive bulky beast that fires a comparably massive 7.62x63mm/.30-06 round. I honestly cannot imagine humping this thing through a fifteen-mile forced march. The leather sling is fairly wide, but the gun remains just huge. I think perhaps those old guys were just tougher than we are today.
The year 2020 has been a notable one. In just the past few months, several million Americans have become first-time gun owners. If ever there were a circumstance under which the wisdom of the Second Amendment was made patently manifest, it is this.
This is Mississippi Auto Arms in Oxford, Miss. A gun shop like this one is typically your first stop in becoming a new gun owner.
But how about those of you who do want to get your first gun, but find the whole process utterly baffling? The vernacular, customs and variegated regulations associated with gun ownership can indeed seem daunting. As a result, we here at The Armory Life thought it might be helpful to create a basic primer on how to buy a gun in America.
Not unlike finance, plumbing, computer programming or brain surgery, once you get the hang of it the whole system will seem fairly straightforward. But we understand how intimidating it can be to dive in. So, let us help you learn the process.
Do you want to become a gun owner, but don’t know where to start?
Intro to American Gun Culture
This process typically begins at your local gun shop. The archetypal gun shop employee is some large hirsute ex-Army Ranger covered in tattoos who oozes scary attitude. He’ll have a gun on his hip and look like he munches pea gravel for breakfast. But looks can be deceiving.
On the other hand, a dear friend of mine owns the coolest gun shop in the world (Mississippi Auto Arms in Oxford, Mississippi). By contrast, he employs a petite and inoffensive young lady. She is engaging, knowledgeable, and disarming. That guy is brilliant, if you ask me.
Buying a firearm might seem confusing, but the process is more straightforward than you might realize.
The bottom line is, chances are if you head into a gun shop, you’ll leave with a gun, some valuable information and a new friend.
Can You Own a Gun?
In general, you need to be a U.S. citizen with a clean criminal record. The document used to manage a firearm transfer is called an ATF Form 4473, and it asks a series of questions about your criminal, military and mental health background. The form is three pages long, but the first page is the only one of consequence to the prospective buyer.
This is the first page of the form you will be required to fill out when purchasing a firearm. Image: ATF
The dealer is going to verify your information using the NICS system, which stands for “National Instant Criminal Background Check System.” Your responses must therefore be truthful.
NICS is usually, but not always actually, instant. If the system is backed up or you have a really common name, you may have to wait a couple days for the check to come through. If you aren’t sure whether you’re eligible, just glance over the questions on the 4473.
Becoming a firearm owner can be a worthwhile and rewarding process.
Some states have extra restrictions over and above what is required by the federal government. In freedom-averse places like New Jersey, Illinois, New York and California, some of those restrictions can be quite onerous. Across most of our Great Republic, however, gun ownership is fairly straightforward if you are a citizen with no criminal background.
Is There a “List”?
All commercially purchased guns must be physically transferred through a dealer with a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Your gun shop will have one of these. Some other businesses like hardware stores may maintain FFLs as well.
The regulatory system governing the national network of gun dealers dates back to 1968 and is actually quite elegant. When you buy a gun and fill out the 4473, that form never leaves the dealer’s premises. NICS checks that are approved are automatically purged every 24 hours. NICS checks that are denied are essentially maintained forever, but that doesn’t apply to you if you have a clean criminal record.
Know the firearm you want to buy, or have questions? Head over to your local gun shop.
If a crime weapon is recovered, the ATF will trace the gun via its serial number starting with the manufacturer, through the distributor, and then on to the individual FFL dealer. The dealer will then produce the form 4473 that identifies the final purchaser. This decentralized system very effectively prevents anyone from maintaining a database of American gun owners, something that is expressly forbidden by federal law.
Just Amazon It?
You cannot legally buy a gun directly over the internet. That’s just an anti-gunner talking point. And buying a gun illegally is one of those crimes that Uncle Sam typically takes pretty seriously.
GunsAmerica.com is a great way to locate the gun you want to purchase. Image: GunsAmerica
There are lots of places to buy guns on the internet, but they will all have to be transferred through your local FFL dealer. That FFL dealer will usually charge a modest fee to do the transfer. Google can help you find an FFL dealer locally. Call the dealer in advance and they can tell you what their fee is. $20 to $50 is pretty typical.
GunBroker.com follows an auction format for firearms and gear on the site. Image: GunBroker
Want a great place online to find your next gun? GunsAmerica.com is like Craigslist for guns and features fixed prices. GunBroker.com is more like eBay with an auction format. Countless other businesses like Mississippi Auto Arms sell guns online. Once you’ve purchased a firearm online, contact your local gun dealer and they will submit a copy of their FFL to the seller. The gun is then shipped to the FFL’s business premises where you then go undertake the transfer, submit your form 4473, go through a background check, etc.
Ruminations
There are nearly 400 million firearms in circulation in America among some 328 million citizens. Gun buying may seem intimidating at first, but it’s really not difficult. If you’re a first-time gun owner I’d strongly recommend you seek out a training course to help familiarize yourself with your new firearm. Your FFL dealer is a good place to start.
Responsible gun ownership is one of the many benefits of United States citizenship.
Responsible gun ownership is the cornerstone of American freedom. That freedom is what makes America different, more productive, and frankly better than the rest of the world if you ask me. So, go out and exercise your Second Amendment rights. And we hope this guide makes the process a little bit more clear.
Jeremy’s Vaquero, customized by Hamilton Bowen and the star of many adventures.
I saw the two green points shining back at me in the beam of the headlamp I’d just turned on — but it wasn’t until I made out the dark bulk behind them I realized what was on the side of the trail ahead. Living and hiking in the mountains, I’d seen this shape before. “Bear,” I thought to myself. Not good, but not the end of the world.
Then, in the bluish light of the LED, I saw a black catlike form scramble up the tree behind her. I can see it now, still hear the scratching sound her cub’s claws made on the bark as it clambered up — whether it actually made such a sound in the moment or not. What I don’t remember is pulling out the big stainless sixgun or laying the wide Bisley hammer back over a cylinder-full of 335-grain hardcast solids.
A Rock And A Hard Place
It was my first time out bowhunting and when darkness caught me miles away from my car, I’d disassembled the takedown recurve and stowed it in my pack. I then walked down the closed gravel road in the dark, the gray of the road and the dark blue of the sky standing out enough from the black woods to keep me headed the right direction without a light. I’d hiked quite a bit in the dark and except for my family giving me a hard time, I’d never really given it much thought. At least until a little voice in the back of my head — you know, the one telling you you’re wrong — told me to turn on the light.
I backed off to give Mama Bear room and considered my options. There was a trail behind me splitting off to head north, the wrong direction, and dead-ended several miles away at a state road on the far side of a mountain. I looked at my phone: no service, no way to call for a ride even if I hiked the several miles uphill to get there.
Ahead of me, the ground fell off downhill to the left side of the road — where she was — and rose steeply, impassable, on the right. There was one way out and it went right past where Mama Bear had staked her claim.
The Gun
I bought the Old Model Vaquero almost 20 years ago when it was just a Vaquero, alongside my old college shooting buddy who bought its twin from a gunshop whose doors are now closed. Polished stainless steel, with 4¾” barrels, faux ivory grips and chambered in .45 Colt, the two sixguns were one digit off from being sequential serial numbers. Close to broke, we bought a single box of 20 cartridges and split them. I promptly took my new thumb buster — loaded with the last six rounds from the box — with me to Mississippi when I went to see my grandfather.
Grandad
Born in California to a veteran of the Spanish American War, my mother’s father was raised in a rambling way, growing up in Kentucky and Florida before settling in Mississippi, but he never lost his love of the West. His house — more specifically, his studio, where he painted and where my cot was usually stationed when we visited — was fascinating from the powder horn and barbed-wire collection on the wall, to his oil lamps and the Winchester I always begged him to show me. I don’t remember what he said about my Vaquero but I know he approved.
If I have any doubt about it, I can look around my own office at his Stetson up on the top of a bookshelf or the couple pairs of rattlesnake rattles and a foil-wrapped packet of .30/30 cartridges I inherited from him.
Nonetheless, the Vaquero remained a bit of a novelty for a few years while I mostly shot M1911s until I snagged a writing assignment on Bowen Classic Arms and dropped the Vaquero off with Hamilton. Returned with a fine, brushed finish, the newly lightweighted gun now had a 4″ barrel, useable front sight and a low, fast-cocking Bisley hammer. The grips were replaced with Persinger ebony grips made in El Paso and fitted to the newly decked frame. It was almost too pretty to shoot.
Almost. I put several hundred rounds of Black Hills and Hornady through it but never quite mastered the gun. What I didn’t understand at the time was how much grip consistency affects accuracy with a single-action, where the gun is recoiling through your hand as the bullet exits the barrel.
Grip it hard, the bullet goes low; loosely, it goes high. I finally learned this about 10 years ago, when I made the decision to put a thousand rounds each through three guns I didn’t shoot all that well. After enough weekly or twice-weekly trips to the range, depleting the large stock of ammo a friend had loaded for me on his Rock Chucker, I could finally hit consistently with the big Ruger, gleefully slamming 255-grain SWCs into my steel spinner until it cracked. At the insistence of another shooting friend, this one from law school days, I shot my first cowboy action match with it. I placed an enjoyable second to last, just ahead of him.
Loading Up
By then I wasn’t afraid to scuff the Vaq up anymore and after a couple less serious encounters of the ursine kind, I decided the extra power of +P .45 Colt rounds was preferable to the .45 ACP I usually carried in the woods. At Bowen’s advice, I stoked it with Grizzly Cartridge Company’s 335, which I chronographed at a freight-train like 1,089 fps.
And there it was, in my hand, cocked. I was the most scared I’ve been in my adult life, more scared than riding shotgun at Road Atlanta in a Porsche racecar dropping down Turn 12 at a buck-twenty, more scared than when I was serving legal papers on people, alone, in downtown Atlanta as a law student, more scared than walking down the stairs in the dark for the first time holding my newborn son.
Shaken But Not Stirred
Scared, but not shaking. With no other option, I breathed a prayer, short and packed with condensed intensity, and began my one-step-at-a-time trip past Mama Bear, now out of sight on the other side of the brush lining the road. Desperately not wanting to shoot this bear, I had decided if she charged I would fire a warning shot first to try to turn her. Considering the extremely short distances involved — 20 feet or less — the decision likely would have cost me a mauling, if not my life.
She let me pass, but followed me through the dark for a hundred yards. At some point I’m sure I gently lowered the hammer and re-holstered but it was no time soon. In the car on the way home, I called my mother who’d long been worried about my hiking habits. “I think it’s time to re-evaluate my decision-making paradigm,” I said drily.
Still Here
The old Vaq is still loaded with 335s, their big, broad meplats almost flush with the end of the cylinder — fresh ones, of course. There’s a little play in the cylinder now, which is striped with irregular lengthwise scratches from many trips in and out of its holster. There are some fine cracks in the grain of the ebony, too, and if you look closely I’m sure you can find a dull red speck or two in the crevices of the dovetailed front sight where it’s hard to wipe the moisture out. This after all the times it’s been rained on, alongside with me.
Sometimes when I pick it up, I think of my grandfather long since passed on to his reward, or my other friends — the one with its partner who moved to Texas and largely out of my life, the other who had lost his vision and with it his dreams of cowboy shooting.
And those two bright green eyes — I think about those a lot.
(Illustration by Matt Battaglia / Task & Purpose).
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For decades, U.S. military leaders have prohibited service members from growing beards, arguing that facial hair not only disrupts a clean, professional appearance, but also interferes with the seal of a gas mask, oxygen mask or other devices that service members wear to survive hazardous environments. While manymilitary leaders defending the beard prohibition have repeated the claim that beards break gas mask seals, one Air Force doctor has found no direct scientific evidence to support it.
“It’s an unsubstantiated claim,” said Lt. Col. Simon Ritchie, a dermatologist who last year published a study on the beard prohibition’s discriminatory effect on Black airmen. While supporters of current Air Force policy “may have anecdotal evidence of one to five people who they see fail the fit test,” he said, “that can’t be extrapolated to hundreds of thousands of airmen.”
Anecdotal evidence is useful, Ritchie said, but in his years of analyzing the issue he has yet to find an up-to-date, scientifically rigorous study showing that neatly trimmed facial hair impacts the seals of military gas masks.
“In the scientific community, anecdotes are the lowest level of evidence for making recommendations,” the doctor said. “A lot of the consensus papers and position papers on this rely on expert opinion, but none of it is based on an actual scientific study like ‘hey, let’s have people put a M-50 mask on and study that.’”
More scientific evidence is needed to inform the military’s grooming standards, Ritchie said, because the current policies have a discriminatory effect on service members of color. Adhering to the Air Force’s prohibition on beards is difficult for many Black airmen who have a medical condition called pseudofolliculitis barbae. Also known as razor bumps, PFB is a skin condition that makes shaving painful and can lead to permanent scarring if the skin is not allowed to heal. Men of any race can have PFB, but the condition is commonly found among Black men.
The Air Force issues shaving waivers to airmen who, for medical or religious reasons, are not able to shave in line with regulations, and many airmen with PFB receive waivers. However, those waivers might harm the airman’s career prospects due to a long-standing cultural aversion to facial hair in the military.
“Male beard growth beyond that allowed by USAF regulation can cast members in a negative light as it can be considered unprofessional,” wrote Ritchie and his fellow researchers in their study, which found an association between shaving waivers and a “significantly longer” time between promotions.
Tech. Sgt. Brandon Tatum, Air Warfare Center chief of joint terminal attack control training, works with Pakistani commandos to locate and coordinate various targets of opportunity during a training scenario at a Pakistan military range, March 1, 2022 (Master Sgt. Christopher Parr / U.S. Air Force)
The promotion system is not necessarily inherently racially biased, the authors cautioned. But it is biased against facial hair, “which will likely always affect the promotions of Blacks/African-Americans disproportionately because of the relatively higher need for shaving waivers in this population.”
You don’t have to suffer from PFB to hate the military’s current policies against facial hair. Unofficial Air Force social media pages are filled with posts written by airmen who are sick of shaving their faces every day and wonder why they have to keep doing it. Many are familiar with the argument that beards prevent a gas mask seal, making it even more odd that there is no direct evidence to back up the claim.
“I won’t speculate, but suffice to say I don’t know,” where the belief that facial hair interferes with a gas mask seal comes from, Ritchie said.
There are some clues out there. While Ritchie could not find an exact date for when beards were first prohibited in the military, he said those policies began to be implemented after World War I, when gas warfare and gas masks emerged on the battlefield. There have been some exceptions. For example, according to U.S. Naval Institute News, sailors were allowed to wear short, trimmed hair, beards and mustaches from the 1880s to the 1960s. The policy was loosened for sailors serving on submarines or in cold climates due to the shortage of freshwater for shaving and the cold temperature, respectively.
In the 1970s, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt loosened the Navy’s facial hair policy even further because he thought it would make the Navy seem less square, thereby improving recruiting and retention. But in 1984, then-CNO Adm. James Watkins banned beards entirely, claiming that they prevented proper seals with emergency breathing apparatuses, which is especially important given how sailors train extensively to fight fires aboard their ships.
“However, the blunt-speaking Secretary John Lehman said that it was simply due to aesthetics,” USNI News wrote. “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.
This led to sailors shaving their heads in protest and threatening to send their whiskers to Watkins, USNI News wrote, but the policy remained. On the Army side, it is widelywritten 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. But more than a century later, there appears to be little direct evidence that links facial hair to poor gas mask fit. 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.
“These studies are for the civilian population, where there’s a range of thickness, curliness and length that may influence the results,” he said. “It’s tough to look at that and say ‘hey, case closed.’”
In contrast to the civilian world, airmen with shaving waivers are allowed a quarter-inch of facial hair at most, so a study would have to be limited to that length or below for it to be applicable in the Air Force, Ritchie explained.
Still, the United States military is not the only one with men in its ranks. In fact, several other NATO countries such as Canada, Germany and Norway permit service members to wear beards. Surely they must have studied the effect of facial hair on gas masks? Apparently not, said Ritchie, who is stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany and so has had plenty of chances to chat with NATO partners about their whisker policies.
“They also can’t point to actual studies,” Ritchie said, “but they can point to lived experience.”
The NATO officers who spoke with Ritchie reported seeing no negative impact of facial hair on oxygen masks for air crew, he said. The airman added that the Royal Canadian Air Force has also had zero physiological events related to beards since the Canadian military first allowed service members to sport them in 2018. Beards also have not been a problem for students from foreign militaries who go through the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, Ritchie said.
“The Aircrew Flight Equipment folks at Sheppard we spoke to have had zero problems fitting a bearded pilot,” he said. “We’ve had Sikhs go through that program and people from NATO who have beards for personal preference.”
Danish Company Commander Karsten Falck talking to a Latvian soldier at Camp Grayling, Michigan, August 1, 2017 (Lt. Col. John Hall / U.S. National Guard)
These anecdotes all regard oxygen masks for aviators, so it would be too bold to extrapolate that the same rings true for gas masks, Ritchie explained. Still, it’s a start, and there is also a recent study from the civilian world that could indicate positive outcomes for beard-hopefuls in the U.S. military. The 2018 study showed that facial hair negatively influences the fit factor for half-face negative-pressure respirators as the hair gets longer and more dense. However, beard-wearers can still “achieve adequate fit factor scores even with substantial facial hair in the face seal area,” the study authors wrote. In fact, 98% of the study participants who had an eighth-inch of beard passed the fit test. Those results are encouraging because the respirators used in the study are pretty close to the M-50 gas masks used in the military today in terms of material and fit, Ritchie said.
“I would consider this to be the closest scientific evidence that we have to answer the relevant question we’re facing,” he explained.
Even some clean-shaven service members struggle with sealing a gas mask or oxygen mask. One Air Force C-130 aviator told Task & Purpose that aircrew flight equipment specialists have a machine that tests the aircrew’s oxygen masks “and it can be a huge pain making sure that thing is sealed up perfectly on your face,” he said.
“I have always been clean-shaven and it can be a challenge,” he added, and Ritchie has seen the same problem in his research.
“Not everyone with a shaved face has a good seal,” he said. “Different kinds of faces affect the seals.”
While no scientific study has established the minimum facial hair length that controls PFB, Ritchie has found through his clinical experience of having treated thousands of airmen with the condition that one-eighth inch is almost always sufficient. The Air Force can conduct studies testing that length’s effect on a gas mask seal. As it turns out, a study on facial hair and gas masks would be simple to execute.
A study of this nature would require only 100 to 150 service members, Ritchie said. Participants would be asked to grow facial hair to a given length, maybe a quarter of an inch. They would be fit-tested for a gas mask and given a detailed assessment on the exact amount of air passing through the seal. Then the participants would be given a clipper, trim down to an eighth-inch, repeat, and then do it all again one more time while clean-shaven. The good thing about the study is that it controls for differences in facial structure.
“If people have problems fit testing while clean-shaven, then that might mean facial hair is not the problem,” Ritchie explained.
A1C Rathour is the first Sikh Airman to receive religious accommodation and may grow his beard and wear his turban while in uniform. Rathour graduated from Security Forces technical training on September 26th, 2019. (Alexander Goad/US Air Force)
Now the only thing left to do is to get the Air Force to conduct a study. Ritchie said that his Air Force Times op-ed on the subject in October 2021 got the attention of the Air Force’s Barrier Analysis Working Group, which works to make the service more inclusive. Several senior leaders of the branch also support the work Ritchie is doing, he said. But it is not clear at this point when that support will translate into actually pulling off a study.
“We don’t have to hire RAND or Booz Allen Hamilton to do it, but the Air Force needs to want it to happen,” he said.
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. 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. Even one of the branch’s most beloved former senior leaders, retired Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Kaleth Wright, said he spent 29 of his nearly 32-year career opposed to facial hair in his service.
“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. “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.’”
Wright said he took that position despite suffering from shaving irritation himself. He eventually learned how to shave in a way that would not irritate his skin, so he believed that if airmen with shaving waivers just did what he had done then they could be clean-shaven too.
“I was willfully ignorant about the impact it was having on young Black men,” he said. “Some of it was because I just ignored it, some of it was because I wanted these young men to do what I did: just suck it up and figure it out and you’ll be fine.”
Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright speaks with members of the 188th Wing during an all-call at Fort Smith, Ark., Oct. 06, 2019. (Tech. Sgt. Daniel J. Condit / U.S. Air National Guard)
It was only until his time as the top enlisted leader of the Air Force that he realized how, for some airmen, being clean-shaven is impossible without immense pain and skin damage. That realization, along with new data from scientists like Ritchie, convinced Wright to make “a complete 180 on the issue,” he said. The tough part is that most people with power in the Air Force have not made that pivot.
Changing policy, “that actually is the easy part,” Wright said. “The real challenge is ‘how do you change the culture, not just in the Air Force but in the services period.’”
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. Instead, “they’re going to shake their heads and find a way to write people with beards off.”
A 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.
“We personally do not feel as if you are a good choice for the squadron,” the technical sergeant said. “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.”
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. That opposition may not always be because leadership is explicitly racist. 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.
“The Air Force is run by old White men,” Wright said. “Even if we allow airmen to wear beards, it’s going to be mostly Black men who wear beards. And even if it’s within the policy, commanders will still find a reason to not hire them, to not select them for opportunities, for promotion.”
Staff Sgt. Gary Beals, left, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense instructor and Metaric, La., native, ensures the M-50 field protective mask fits properly on a Marine before entering a gas chamber aboard Camp Lejeune, N.C., Aug. 27. (Lance Cpl. John M. Raufmann / U.S. Marine Corps)
Still, today’s military culture may not be tomorrow’s. One of those self-identified ‘old white guys,’ Maj. Gen. Kenneth Bibb, is proof of that. At the panel discussion, Bibb recalled saying that airmen with shaving waivers could not “be at the gate, you’re not going to represent my wing … I don’t want you on my Honor Guard.
“Man that hurts now that I think about the words that I said and the guidance that I gave,” said Bibb, who commands the 18th Air Force.
Making airmen feel welcome is a readiness issue, Bibb said: it opens the branch up so that more people can help accomplish the Air Force mission. The general has asked airmen with shaving waivers to share their stories and the anguish they’ve experienced, including one technical sergeant who tried so hard to shave in order to conform with regulations that he needed surgery because he had damaged his face.
“I’ll be the first airman to grow a beard,” if the Air Force drops its prohibition of them, Bibb said. “I think we have to take away the stigmatism that goes with this. Even if you change the rules, if we don’t see leaders that have beards,” then there will still be a stigma.
Wright agreed with the general.
“If generals and senior leaders are wearing beards and it becomes a normalized thing then maybe we weed out all of those folks who would find various ways to exclude folks anyway,” he said.
It’s a learning process, Ritchie said. The Air Force, and the modern military in general, was built a certain way around beards, and it might not have to be that way anymore.
“There’s a quote from Maya Angelou: do your best until you know better, and then do better,” he said. “Everybody should be able to change, to evolve positions and not feel like pride is in the way.”
David covers the Air Force, Space Force and anything Star Wars-related. He joined Task & Purpose in 2019, after covering local news in Maine and FDA policy in Washington D.C. David loves hearing the stories of individual airmen and their families and sharing the human side of America’s most tech-heavy military branch. Contact the author here.
