Originally Posted by
Bigbux
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When I first joined it was an offence to be gay. If you were subsequently found to be homosexual you were court martialled and discharged with a criminal offence recorded against you, despite it not being a criminal offence in civvy street.
Female officers were given the choice of terminating either their service or their pregnancies.
Female officers were offered PVR on marriage, but male officers not.
"Why should we change?" you ask. Is it that you are only comfortable around people that look and sound like you?, or perhaps you would be content if some arbitrary rule was applied that disadvantaged you?
It would seem that tattoos and piercings have joined the list of "must-haves" for the insecure and impressionable, along with cigarettes, beards, top-knots, designer baby names and gym steroids. But to be honest, without this bunch your Armed Forces wouldn't add up to a hill of beans.
What counts is what they can give and labelling them all to fit in with a set of stereotyped pre-conceptions is not a terribly effective way of sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Being gay, bisexual, left wing or anything like that doesn't stop you looking smart in uniform, whereas tattoos take away the principle of uniformity. We all have to conform with standards of haircut, pressed trousers, shiny shoes etc. Do the masses all have to be covered in tattoos to continue this uniformity so that we can embrace the minority? Granted, some of these tattoo covered people may well be of a high calibre, but we are a uniformed service and there are rules to be followed. If someone chooses to get tattoos then that is their choice and good luck to them. I personally think it looks absolutely bloody awful and that is why I do not have any. We can only bend over to appease the PC brigade so much, and this is a step too far for me I am afraid.