My first duty assignment was at a joint base in Korea. While there I learned many things about the army I volunteered for. The first was that common sense doesn't matter in the army. There were many instances, but I'm just going to talk about the army uniform and some of the stupid rules that go along with it. I just read an article from a local television station about soldiers and their "right to bare arms"...meaning the right to roll up their sleeves on hot summer days. During my time in the Korean summer I saw all the other U.S. branches (Navy, Air Force, & Marines) all with their sleeves rolled up. On top of that all the ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers all had their sleeves rolled up as well. I just shook my head as I had to walk around with my sleeves all the way down.
Another stupid requirement was the rule against carrying an umbrella. One image I'll never forget was during monsoon season in Korea. I saw a navy sailor and an army soldier walking down the street in very heavy rain. The navy sailor was walking along with his black umbrella keeping dry and chatting with the army soldier who was walking along getting totally soaked. I was told we don't need umbrellas because we are issued rain gear. Rain gear is not as practical as an umbrella while just working on base doing an office job, but I figured I would put my gear on while making the walk to work in the rain. I was stopped by an NCO and told to take off my hood...we're not authorized to use the hood here. Just plain stupid! Why have a hood on issued gear if we can't use it...especially while walking alone and not in a formation of any kind.
Here is the link to the story I just read that brought this whole issue up.
