Why can't we grow beards?

Let me tell you a story.......
Soldiers: "Hey Army, why can't we grow beards?"
Army: "Because, that's what's in the reg."
Soldiers: "But that's not really relevant anymore...."
Army: "Ok, we'll think about it."
Soldiers: "Thanks Army for at least considering it."
*Syrian Gas attacks*
Army: "Nah, we're gonna stick with the regs"
Soldiers: "DAMNIT!"

Don't worry. In a hundred years from now, when the Army finally gets the Storm Trooper uniforms, facial hair will be the norm.

Ever worn a gas mask, fired an M4, or buckled a helmet on with a beard? Picked lice or mud out of a beard? Sure, grooming standards, but there are practical reasons too.

We should be allowed to SSG(P) (Join to see)

They recently allowed a Heathen (Norse) to have a religious exemption for a beard.

This adds on to the Sikhs and Muslims in the past. The list continues to grow.

Why would we allow psychotics to serve militarily, when civilly they are deemed prohibited possessors. I believe drug use can return you to civilian status or possibly earn you a slumber party at club fed. Should be able to have a beard if you are a lifer, though depending on region of deployment. From a distance a nice clean face may be the best first indicator of friend or foe.

Because most of you are too young to grow anything that wouldn't look horrific, and upper management would rather we not all look like hobos.

I love this question. Sometime after WWI Americans and the Military got it into their heads that "good guys" were always clean shaven and had short hair.

The problem with beards is that it makes it difficult to enforce uniformity of "appearance" among the ranks. Uniformity has long been associated with military discipline. It's been understood for some time that having a baseline "skills and equipment" uniformity across units makes the job of military planner's easier and the likelihood of successful plans higher.
At some point it was slowly decided that this uniformity should also apply to "appearance". In reality our military has grown beyond that. We have mixed races and genders into our ranks (successfully). We have Soldiers with religious exemptions for beards. As it turns out we will never again be able to have complete uniformity of appearance and still we have uniformity of skills and equipment.

We need to evolve our thinking on this. IMO, we should bring beards back and real military dress uniforms (with high collars).

It's called a gas mask...

Nerve agent, blood agent, blister agent, both dispersed as small droplets or fine dusty particles. You want to die of chemical agent poisoning or look cool?