Sometimes a story is pretty uneventful, but one line makes me laugh out loud. This is one of those cases:
The U.S. Army, which missed its recruiting goal last year, has relaxed its policy banning certain types of tattoos in a bid to attract new soldiers who otherwise would have been barred from serving.
The Army will now allow new recruits and all its current soldiers to have tattoos on their hands and back of their necks as long as they are not “extremist, indecent, sexist or racist,” Army officials said on Wednesday.
The Army said it continues to prohibit tattoos anywhere on the head, face or throat area.
But it will allow women recruits and soldiers to sport “permanent makeup” in the form of indelible eye-liner, eyebrows and lip makeup. The Army said this permanent makeup “should be conservative and complement the uniform and complexion in both style and color, and will not be trendy.”
The Army- It’s Not Just a Job, It’s a Fashion Adventure!
Jim Allen
Women who plan on enlisting might want to hold off on the camouflage eyeliner until after boot camp and they get their assignments. No sense getting jungle colors if you’re to be posted to the desert, for example.
Krista
Trendy. Mm-hm. Recruiting is down, and they’re going to bar a woman recruit on the basis of the trendiness of her permanent makeup? Bizarre. Can’t make this stuff up. :)
Seriously, though, I think that if someone is willing to get their ass shot off to protect their country, they should be allowed to have facial tattoos, purple hair, or Tammy Faye-esque makeup, if that’s what floats their boat and keeps their morale up.
Pete Guither
Does this mean that if the draft is re-instated, people will be getting tattoos on their heads to avoid serving?
SeesThroughIt
Hmmm…painful permanent scarring on the head? Well…it sure beats moving to Canada!
(I kid, Krista, I kid.)
Pb
Heh. If army members start wearing army make-up, I guarantee you it will be trendy. Heck, people *already* wear army looking/inspired uniforms, of course they’ll pick up on the makeup.
Brian in Oakland
John, don’t ask, don’t tell. This is a sign that our military transformation under Rumsfeld will be fab. Work it girrrl!
jg
How that hell can you get permanent makeup that isn’t trendy? LOL Its a trend. It has to be trendy.
Krista
SeesThroughIt:
That could be arranged…
Richard 23
I guess this guy is out.
This guy, too.
SeesThroughIt
Just don’t send the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen after me, though I might be able to defuse the situation by joining them in a rousing rendition of their anthem:
Our country reeks of trees
Our yaks are really large
And they smell like rotting beef carcasses
And we have to clean up after them
Our saddle sores are the best
We proudly wear women’s clothing
As searing sand blows up our skirts
Sorry, sorry…I just love that Ren & Stimpy episode. But I’ll stop with the Canada jokes now. At least for a little while.
Krista
SeesThroughIt – Heh. I had major surgery when I was 17, and it was during a “Stimp-a-thon” on MuchMusic. Imagine being on Demerol, watching over 24 hours of Ren and Stimpy. I think it really helped to warp my mindset into what it is today.
SeesThroughIt
I just flashed back to my high-school years, though I had different prescriptions than Demerol. Same general idea, though. Did you see John K’s last episode? The one where R&S make a cartoon, sell it to a syndicate, and then end up struggling for creative control (gee, satire with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer there)? The syndicate boss’s face kept melting–like, an ear would drop off, his skin would start dripping like wax, etc. It wasn’t until I saw the episode much later that I was 100 percent sure the melting was really in the cartoon and not just me tripping balls on my meds.
Angry Engineer
So Mike Tyson is still disqualified from serving? Why oh why must our military insist on providing aid and comfort to our enemies?
Pooh
“I wanted to be in the army when I was a kid. You know, running, jumping, climbing trees. Putting on makeup when you’re up there”
SeesThroughIt
Mike Tyson with a machine gun–now there’s a killin’ machine!
Peter ve
What about the men with permanent eye liner?
“Come, come, come, my little droogies.” Must Alex always be discriminated against?
Krista
No. I was higher than a kite, but kept falling asleep. The only bits that really stuck out for me were Powdered Toast Man, the Space Madness episode, Stimpy calling forlornly for “Stinky”, and the ad for Log. It was a weird weekend.
SeesThroughIt
Wow, that’s like a greatest hits smorgasbord right there, though. Powdered Toast Man was pure genius (“are we clinging tenaciously to my buttocks?”), Space Madness was one of the best descents into madness ever (“You like the same things I do…wax paper…dog breath…boiled football leather!”) with the added bonus of the “jolly, candylike button,” and as for Log, well…
What rolls down stairs
Alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack
And fits on your back?
It’s Log, Log Log!
It’s Log, it’s Log, it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood
It’s Log, it’s Log, it’s better than bad–it’s good!
don surber
Tattoos are for Marines and sailors, not soldiers
StupidityRules
You can’t do that anymore. Canada will send you straight back.
So people with tattoo’s in there face and gays are not allowed in the army… Personally I think I’ll rather tell them I got a boyfriend than tattoo my face if I wanted out of the army.
Broken
Speaking of the Army, what’s up with this BS?
From AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor other than the protective gear issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday, the latest twist in a running battle over the equipment the Pentagon gives its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies – including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.
“We’re very concerned that people are spending their hard-earned money on something that doesn’t provide the level of protection that the Army requires people to wear. So they’re, frankly, wasting their money on substandard stuff,” said Col. Thomas Spoehr, director of materiel for the Army.
Veterans groups immediately denounced the decision.
This is crap. Dragonskin armor has been shown FAR more effective than standard issue. Why on earth ban it?
Link = guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5723094,00.html
Angry Engineer
I said absolutely nothing about giving that man a gun. We might want to consider pairing him up with Chuck Norris, though.
I’m pretty sure that Powdered Toast Man’s best moment was when he helped rescue the President from a trouser-zipping incident, a scenario that seems uncomfortably realistic with the current occupant of the White House.
Krista
“Oh, my beloved ice cream bar! How I love to lick your creamy center!”
Twisted, twisted stuff.
Krista
It could also apply to the previous occupant of the White House…just in a different context.
SeesThroughIt
“We’re not just hitchiking anymore…we’re riding!”
My friends and I still use the “You covet my ice cream bar! I’ve had this ice cream bar since I was a child!” line a lot.
Krista
You and your friends are just as weird as my friends and I, with our incessant quoting from MST 3000.
Sad, really. :)