Cheap Chinese shaver & Ni-Mh cell.

Shaving is perhaps the best example of doing something that's unnecessary, just because everyone else does. As I like to say... Why do you want to make yourself look more like a woman?

Reply to
William Sommerwerck
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If I had a big bushy beard, I'd always worry what was nesting in it - that and I might get mistook for a raghead by the local skinheads!

Reply to
Ian Field

You'd shave, if you lived in the deep south. Otherwise, it's just another way to get infected pores from the sweat and bacteria.

Also: Try telling a Drill Instructor that you aren't going to shave. ;-)

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Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Ya got somethin' 'gainst sweet li'l critters?

A woman who ran an exotic-pets business told how her husband was converted into a flying-squirrel lover when he woke up one morning with one of them nestling in his beard.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Like all those Civil War generals?

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

I do when they take a dump in my beard!

Reply to
Ian Field

I always had trouble with ingrown hairs when I used to shave - so I haven't really shaved off my beard since my 20s. Every ten years or so I go clean cut, but the rash always stops me from keeping it off more than a few months.

A beard doesn't have to be long...and you can look quite clever when you are stroking it whilst trying to figure out what to say when you are in over your head...

John :-#)#

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Reply to
John Robertson

Who cares about long dead officers? I don't shave every day, I usually just run the hair clippers over my face without a guide. If I don't, I end up with a nasty red rash.

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

It's better, not to get in over your head. :)

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

You (implicitly) brought it up.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Its best not to bring things up when you've got a beard.

Reply to
Ian Field

No, I didn't I was referring to living there myself.

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

And so did those generals, many of who were well-bearded.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

First of all, those generals were in camps with plenty of water. The paintings weren't made under battle conditions, and their well trimmed beards were to show that they were important.

Secondly, the regulations changed. All we were allowed during the Vietnam era was a well maintained mustache. It's too easy to get ticks or other insects in a jungle battlefield, where you are on patrol for a week or more at a time. Watch some of the old Combat, and other WW II TV series to see the soldiers being reprimanded for not being clean shaven. Even M*A*S*H keeps them clean shaven, except for a few misfits who are trying to be thrown out. Even they are told to shave.

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Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

The photos of that era show that officers were much more likely to sport full facial hair than enlisted men.

Did beards indicate some sort of social rank? I've wondered about this, and am inclined to say "no". Beards were common throughout most of the 19th century, regardless of one's social standing.

Heck, they changed early in the 20th century. One of the reasons was the possibility of being "grabbed" in hand-to-hand compact -- rather strange when every soldier carried a rifle.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there was a reaction against beards. Part of this must have been the usual back-and-forth of grooming styles. It might also have been due to the spread of belief in the germ theory of disease -- beards were "dirty", and thus disease-spreaders.

As for the armed forces -- insisting that men "facially circumcise" themselves is nothing more than an attempt to suppress individuality. (It has nothing to do with parasites or infection.) About 25 years ago, there was a brief period during which the Navy permitted trim beards. (In "The Abyss", Chris Elliot (Bob's son) plays a bearded Navy man.) That didn't last long.

I remember the moment, in late 1977, when I threw off the shackles of social convention. I would no more shave off my beard than I would cut off my testicles.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

That's because you had to have someone shave you. That cost money and time to go to a town with a barber. Also, keep in mind that back then bathing more than once a year was considered unhealthy. Poor hygiene cause much shorter lifetimes for most people.

Have you ever had combat training? Not all attacks are frontal. Also, tear gas and other chemical warfare burn like crazy and you sure as hell don't want your face feeling like someone is holding a flame thrower on your exposed skin. Our group had to go into a concrete block structure during Basic Training, where they lobbed a real military grade tear gas grenade inside. The mask protects your eyes and lungs, but not your exposed skin. It takes a lot longer to was it off hairy skin. It took days beffore all the effects were gone.

If you have to take out an enemy's sentry, you don't charge in and start shooting. A lot of enemy troops are taken with a bayonet, no matter what Obama thinks.

Without proper care, they are dirty and germ laden.

An army of 'individuals' don't follow orders, and die quickly. They have to be able to work together, think alike and follow orders if they want to live. War movies are generally full of shit, with a couple gung ho 'heroes' winning the war single handedly. Look at the statistics for W.W.II for the number of people who died.

Whatever. A lot of employers won't hire someone with a fuzzy face. In some jobs, it can get you killed. There is a reason machinists have short hair and don't wear rings or other jewelry at work. I had a physical trainer at the VA try to insult me for wearing the prescribed thigh high support stockings that keep my legs from developing ulcers. he was yelling, "No self respecting man would ever wear anything made for a woman." I told him that I preferred to keep my legs, and that it was not up to him. The idiot didn't know that they were originally a man's garment, but it didn't stop him from being an ass. It almost got him fired.

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Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

That doesn't answer the question -- it doesn't /cost/ money to have a beard.

I think you're confusing the 19th century with the Elizabethan era. People commonly bathed about once a week -- usually Saturday night, so they'd be clean for church services.

You've swallowed it whole, Michael. Don't worry -- if we ever meet, I won't force myself on you.

Note Israel's lousy armed forces has.

I love hearing conservatives attack one's right to be an individual.

Some -- not a lot. It's never been a issue for me.

That goes without saying.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Sorry. "Note what lousy armed forces Israel has."

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

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