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thedrifter
11-14-06, 01:27 PM
November 06, 2006
Grooming standards getting a makeover

By John Hoellwarth
Staff writer

The Corps is in the early stages of overhauling its grooming standards for the first time in decades as well as tweaking outdated regulations about how Marines wear devices on their ribbons, according to the Marine Corps Uniform Board’s program manager.

A ballot circulated to sergeants major across the Corps solicits feedback from individual Marines about the changes and clarifications to the grooming regulations, Mary Boyt said. Working groups at the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy in Quantico, Va., recently recommended the changes, she said.

“We tore it apart. This is the first time the grooming standards have been looked at as a whole since probably they were written. They were old. They’re decades old,” Boyt said. “We pretty much recommended something about everything.”

The ballot asks Marines whether they agree with the working groups’ recommendations on 36 aspects of the grooming standards. She would not say what those recommendations were.

Green-side sailors will be affected by the change in Marine Corps grooming standards, too, according to dress code changes adopted by the uniform board in January.

“If sailors wear the Marine Corps combat utility uniform, they must abide by Marine Corps grooming and accessory regulations,” stated MarAdmin message 031/06.

Results are due back to her office by Nov. 1, Boyt said, after which she will consolidate and present them to the board for discussion and possible submission to the commandant.

Marine Corps Forces Europe, Training and Education Command and II Marine Expeditionary Force have sent their responses, she said.

Marines in other commands can ask their sergeant major for a ballot and weigh in on the issue.

Ribbon rules also changing

Meanwhile, changes to the way Marines wear devices on their ribbons are already being worked out by the board and officials at Marine Corps headquarters’ Awards Branch, in response to questions from the fleet about how they should be worn, Boyt said.

When it comes to award devices denoting multiple awards and combat heroism, she said, “A lot of the guidance on how to wear them is confusing.”

For example, Boyt said, regulations require a Marine to place the combat “V” in the middle of a medal’s suspension ribbon. Stars indicating that a Marine has received the medal more than once are stacked vertically above the “V.” But if you’ve been in the Corps awhile and already had a handful of Navy Achievement Medals before you earned one for valor in Iraq, you’ll find there’s not enough room on your medal’s suspension ribbon to affix the stars, Boyt pointed out.

Rules for ribbons are different. The “V” goes in the middle, but the stars go on both sides.

“We’re going to have to rewrite it so that the ‘V’ and the stars are the same on the ribbon and suspension ribbon,” she said.

Marines occasionally call her directly to ask about what to do when they can’t fit all their stars on their medals, or all their medals on their chest, now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing more award recipients, she said.

Boyt expects recommendations about the grooming standards and the wearing of award devices to land on the commandant’s desk at the same time next year, she said.

She anticipates that there will be new regulations for each in effect in time for the 2007 Marine Corps birthday balls.

Ellie