Why are tattoos and haircuts so important? (Read details before responding)

Says it well enough...

Sean, you're absolutely on target.  Let's keep the most important things as "the most important things."

Good thing this fellow got into the Navy because his tattoos do not meet the new Army Professional Standard.

I agree with you SFC Spinks. I also think common military customs and courtesies need to fall into that one. I am a 13B30 instructor with Oklahoma national guard. We have NCO's come through here that can barley pass the APFT. Or the ones I get irritated at are the ones that just appear to be a PT stud and they do their bare minimum and get up. We re-implemented the APFT into the Guard NCOES academies two years ago. There was a span of I know at least four years that it was not a requirement. The hair cut does not make the leader. But his personal actions and ethics do. I get E2 -E5 soldiers go through the MOSQ portion all the time that try to approach my Master Sergeant and talk with their hands and MF this and MF that. But we are not allowed to do much more than just an on the spot verbal correction. What happened to the days that you could just drop them and smoke the snot out of them? According to new regulations you should have them write an essay on customs and courtesies. With the changes in the military I think I will only make my 20 and hang it up. I wonder if the Active side has had this much of a decrease of military morals???

I absolutely agree with you, as a man with longer hair, I appreciate the approach you are taking to this. 

I see this whole thing as resource management.

We are in a legal climate where measurable and observable characteristics must make the difference in accessions and promotions.The tattoo policy gives specific guidelines on deciding the future of the force.

Tattoos are a demonstrable way of evaluating an individuals decision making capabilities. Any person with elaborate tattoos who also has credit card debt, automobile debt, or other non-tax deductible debt instruments demonstrates the potential to be a short-term thinker who will not manage his or her own scarce resources very well. If a person cannot manage themselves, how can they manage others. Given a pool of candidates for accession or promotion, the Army is choosing to accept those who make decisions in a specific manner, where the end result is observable.

Does this solve the problem or create certainty about the desired result, absolutely not. However, it aggregates several areas Army leadership considers important and creates observable measures.

My questions is this: Why are so many people confounded by the tattoo issue and nobody seems to have a problem with prohibiting giant holes in ears?

Where do you draw the line? If you think elaborate tattoos are acceptable, why not allow all the prohibited appearances?

Someone has to make decisions. The more time that people spend pouting and kicking their rock down the street, the less time is being spent on PT and MOS Proficiency.

There's no reason we can't do all at the same time.