I trimmed before coming home from Shader, but I didn’t after another Op.
There was a good 4 odd inches after that one. She wasn’t happy with that. Neither was my Warrant at the end of that one to be fair…
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Well I say.
Ahhh but who did you obey on the end 
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Oooh Matron
I’m not so sure, BBC quotes the army and YouGov as stating that 54% of men in the UK have beards, if you’ve already made that sort of decision on your appearance it’s no small thing to have to completely change it.
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You may well be right. I suppose I just have a different view of it. Cutting my hair or beard isn’t much of a big deal for me I suppose. I forget sometimes that people don’t have the same all over the place mindset I have.
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I was just beyond the “legal” grade 8 last week. Looked homeless!
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I didn’t say it was a good look…
I’m convinced we changed respirators at work because people were saying no to CBRN over shaving.
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Yeah. Bit strange. I’ll be taking my beard of for respirators next month. So I suppose my view is a little different. I went from a top knot last year to bald.
Just don’t have that sort of attachment.
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Having had a top knot I assume your aren’t particularly vain 
Usually no.
Having joined cadets at 14 and now in my 30s, I’ve never grown my hair out. So felt like a change. Then got bored with it and went bald. Now I’m growing it out again.
Stresses the missus out.
The quote seems to relate to facial fuzz, so beards / moustaches.
YouGov surveys since then have tracked the growth of Britain’s facial fuzz over the last decade, with our latest poll finding that most men (54%) now say they currently sport some form of facial hair, up from 42% in 2016 and 37% in 2011.
However:
Facial hair is particularly fashionable among younger men (those aged 18-39). Fully seven in ten men in this age group have some form of facial hair (69%),
with a beard and moustache being the most common (42%).
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Seems about right, we were discussing with my brother in law last night that after 5 months he is the 3rd man without a beard that my daughter has seen.
All 3 of those men are over 40.
I’m under 40 and don’t have a beard.
But I did have, and shaved it off in preparation for potentially joining up. This is after only regrowing it because RAFAC started allowing beards in uniform.
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You and @Horriblelittletechie make my point for me. If someone isn’t prepared to shave or get a haircut for their country, I don’t have much faith in them being prepared to put their life on the line in the service of others.
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Wrong way round.
People are prepared to risk their lives for their friends, and their societies, but they take the view that an organisation that exists to kill the enemy and break their stuff, but which cares about whether you’ve got a smooth chin or not, whether you wear jeans in your home, not allowing you to have a kettle in your room, is an organisation that has it’s priorities completely back to front.
If this stuff is D list and inconsequential, why do you care?
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I did the NBC Trg Off’s cse; at the time, the strict guidance was that any facial hair around the inside of the respirator would degrade the effectiveness of the seal against the face. Beards, or even heavy stubble = potentially fatal in nerve gas conditions. Having watched the “interesting” videos, none of us would have wanted to test out any degradation caused by beards!
Subsequently, this requirement was repeated when having to use the delightful aircrew “gimp” respirator with the “whistling handbag” filter holder.
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I was prepared to “play the game” but only because I recognised it was a few months of from my previous Phase One training, before joining the real services. And I knew what that looked like.
Those who don’t have that experience, and whose first experience of the military is being told to remove something they probably view as a key part of their identity (some men are weird) without being given a strong “why” behind that decision are much less likely to agree to it.
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This is such a nonsense and completely the wrong way around.
If someone is willing to die for their country, why would you insist they can’t have a beard, just because?
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