Should standards be looked at from a "Do as I do, not as I say" standpoint? Starched pants look REAL good but.....are not allowed.

Wow.... Great answer... refer back to the regulation. Does it look nice and professional? Yes, of course it does. We don't hold on to things just because... when the military evolves, we evolve with it. No starch means no starch... that doesn't mean kinda no starch or maybe no starch. EVERY time we fail to uphold a standard we set a new one and that is a more powerful lesson to our young service members than anything else. Press your uniform without the starch. You don't have to put creases in your uniform to look professional. You just have to have a clean uniform that is wrinkle free and lets your subordinates know that you have pride in your appearance.

I got my acus starched and pressed once a week for my pins and patches uniforms. I just regular washed my field acus. I never expected my soldiers to do the same, though some of them did.

Bottom line: when you are raised to have shiny boots and a perfectly fitting and ironed uniform, that is what you expect out of yourself. It looks more professional and as though you care about your appearance. When you have 15-20 uniforms it is not that big a deal to have a few that you always have pressed and ready to go with a pair of garrison boots. I think most NCOs fall into this category.

Uhhhhh.....yeah.

But that would be using common sense and I'm pretty sure with all the years that you put in that that is completely unacceptable. Lol

When I was Stationed at NSB Bangor near Ft Lewis, once a quarter I sent the Company Gunny to Ft Lewis DPDO. He would pick up boxes of utilities that were "unserviceable". We sewed them up and used them whenever we did field training, particularly barb-wire drills. This preserved the Marines unit issue and basic allowance for uniforms. But officers and SNCO's were not allowed to use the DPDO utilities, ever. We were always expected to hold a higher standard than our Marines. But to be honest, most Marines made that a pretty difficult standard for officers and Marines to actually achieve.