What are your thoughts on our Soldiers paying to having their Class A uniforms set-up for DA photos and inspections?

Paul Crossgrove - Maybe you should stop looking down the barrel to see if the gun jammed?

There are good points for either side, but I must side with the "get rid of the photo" side since there are countless senior NCOs who were selected with NO PHOTO ON FILE, thus proving you don't need the photo for the board to determine if someone is fit to hold the next rank.
The whole "it shows you can wear a uniform" argument. Why is that a thing, it should be assumed that one can wear one being that they are a Soldier. Sure some may not care, or will forget since we hardly ever wear those uniforms these days, but it really is a trivial thing to worry about - archaic.
They already have the SRB, listing PT score, awards, deployments etc - the same info that's on a uniform - so now we're practicing redundancy (just like writing the PT score on the (NC)OER, it's redundant and wastes space for a bullet.
Are people honestly arguing that the ability to put some pins on a uniform is more important than having a degree? being in shape? able to shoot? holding the necessary duty positions? attending military training?
That's the problem there. Use the photo as the final deciding factor in a tie (as crazy subjective as it may be), not to say well Johnny here has a Master's, a 300 APFT, 40 Marksmanship, finished squad leader time and is serving at the white house, but Phil here has all his pins lined up according to a book that tells you exactly how to do it - in which he had plenty of time because he has 0 college credits, a 186 APFT, shot 23, and attended ALC - so Phil will be our new SFC and Johnny can wait a year. Maybe he'll learn about a uniform in that time.......

SGT Paul Crossgrove - Facebook ends up sending folks to old posts. I realize this is three years after your post, but I am just seeing it. "You may say that you view the photo to check for proper placement of awards. This should be done prior to your vidwing the photo. What you immediately see is the man / woman, his/her ethnicity (or lack therof) and the judging begins." During my career I served on DA level promotion boards. Everything in the board record is scrutinized and there are a lot of MOSs that have few quotas for promotion. It some cases the judging is so tight that the professionalism that is shown by the care of the uniform makes the difference. Believe me, I have heard for years that "they only promote X gender, or X race, etc." But that is not the case. I could not have cared less about the race or gender, but I did not want to promote someone who did not take pride in their uniform.

In many cases the soldier torpedoes his/her own record. In one instance the soldier wrote a letter to the board, one line was "disregard the article 15 in...", it was the first thing we all looked at. I looked at competitions, NCO of the year, Audie Murphy, etc. I also looked at college, but not in the way you think. I also looked at military schools, Battle Staff course and so forth. If an NCO was spending a lot of time on college, with no military schools, and nothing showing in the records of them doing above and beyond on their troops, I felt that the were concentrating too much on college and marked their record accordingly.

Back in the Black Boot days at Bragg, there must of been at least 10 different Boot shining stands around the Post, And no one batted an eye at it. I have to think that it was the higher rankIng that used them more, so that they were not out shined by the Junior Enlisted at Monday morning Inspections.

Agreed, SGT (Join to see). However, based on COL Charles Williams comments as he opened the discussion thread, apparently many soldiers don’t even take the time to read the AR (I mentioned time). As I said, it’s not that difficult. Letting someone else prepare your uniforms is simply lazy. If a soldier doesn’t prepare his own uniforms and fails an inspection, they’ve no one to blame but themselves.

If you want to be a leader, you should at a minimum be able to read the regulations and demonstrate that you understand how to apply them in setting up your own uniform. If you can't do that for yourself, how will you supervise soldiers in setting up theirs?

Totally agree, MAJ Christopher Brewer.

LTC Stephen C. - Very much agreed. If a soldier wants to pay for it, that's fine. If something isn't right, it's not on the service, it's on the soldier.

I've set up my own uniforms for inspection myself. Due to the costs of sewing, and the sometimes unreliable nature of some of the alterations places I've used, I've sewn my own uniforms, everything from tapes/rank/patches to service coat sleeves, and hemmed my own dress pants. I had some trial and error on them, but being able to use a needle and thread, I can correct problems fairly quickly.

I surprised one of my Readiness NCOs when I sat in the chair in his cubicle, and sewed together one of the seams on my pants that had come loose. He ordered me some uniforms (which was two years ago, and I still don't have those uniforms, but that's another story.)

I've taken a lot of pride in my uniforms, and I know I can rely on myself. Can't always rely on alterations.

Having it cleaned is one thing -- like taking your car to a mechanic for a regular tune-up. Setting it up is something else entirely. To stretch an analogy till it squeals, it's like letting somebody else pick out your radio stations and set up your buttons.

Sgt Jesse Thompson - Sorry, but I have to disagree with you very strongly on this. It is part of the whole mind-set, of getting things done right. Some things ARE more important, but to casually dismiss something as "not important" begins to erode the attitude of "do it right, all the time". I have had managerial positions, and in almost every major discipline case, that is what it came down to. Letting the little things slide lead to letting bigger things slide led to not getting the job done at all.

Sgt Jesse Thompson - All you said was true except the part where you downplay and talk about a Marine or soldiers uniform. If you were a Marine you would know that Marines are proud of the uniform and spend hours of downtime grooming themselves and the uniform it is a sence of pride for us. I would never trust an outsider to do what I awas trained to do and I felt so strongly about. As for us soldiers the upkeep and serviceability of the uniform is not stressed as much as it was in th Marine Corp but I used it as a motivational tool when it came to my soldiers. A soldier or a Marine is supposed to present a professional and military appearance at all times. The uniform should be cleaned and pressed and hung in a garment bag to protect it and to ensure that the ribbons and badges and acutchaments remain in place until the next wearing.

Sgt Jesse Thompson - Unnecessary and uncalled for rudeness. Also, IMO, if you can't be bothered to turn out correctly, what other corners are you cutting?