The 10 Most Ridiculous Military Regulations, Customs, And Courtesies

Good lord, honestly, does a soldier need to wear a reflective belt during training out in the woods? Is that really necessary?

It's understandable if he's near road traffic, or in the middle of live-fire training, but other than that, it's absurd to put so many reflective belts on the troops and their gear.

Now, this devil dog likely took to his own head with a set of buzzers for two reasons: saving time, or saving money.

Junior enlisted Marines already don't make much money. Plus, waiting with the other ... entire base-worth of junior Marines ... takes a lot of time out of liberty.

C'mon, is a weekly haircut necessary? Let's try bi-monthly.

This should be self-explanatory: Aren't the bigwigs at all embarrassed to have their reserved parking next to that of handicapped people and expectant mothers?

If you're at the top of the chain, then you've made it this far, you can make it from the middle of the parking lot.

We can train in it. We can mow it. But we can't walk on it. Especially if it's anywhere near an official department of defense building or office.

Big time rule, at least in the Marines, is not to walk on the grass — and you'll get dogged out if you ignore it.

Admittedly, some leaders are more stringent about this than others.

Parade rest is when troops stand with the feet shoulder width apart, and their hands like so — right over left — behind their backs.

What we can say is that making junior servicemembers, under every circumstance, stand at parade rest when talking to their leaders — sometimes even just one stripe above them — is not always conducive to unit cohesion.

Every Friday, units of all shapes and sizes give a collective groan at the end of the day over the hated safety briefs and car inspections.

The brief itself varies, but it can sometimes last upward of a half hour, and it's always the same stuff. Certainly it can be parsed down a bit. Or, better yet, read and signed.

The vehicle inspections are just over-the-top. Good rule of thumb is that if the car doesn't look obviously decrepit and dangerous, let the troop drive it.

The Pentagon loves ORM — the lengthy paperwork process that requires identifying every possible risk factor (and how to mitigate it) before conducting training.

Again, overkill.

Everyone understands that the military is often bureaucratic and redundant, but why make it more redundant than it needs to be? If troops want to play basketball on a Friday for physical training, just let them go play basketball.

No need for the lesson in filling out needless paperwork.

One of the more annoying, military-wide regulations.

Ostensibly, it exists for two reasons: because troops need to be ready to salute officers, and because (again) "it just looks nasty."

It doesn't look nasty, it looks normal. And if servicemembers aren't paying attention and miss saluting an officer, chances are they're the type to do that without the cellphone.

Every time a servicemember leaves a unit or joins a unit, they have to "check out," and then "check in."

The list of places to go to get required signatures is so huge, it's laughable. Really there are two main concerns for troops: "Am I getting paid?" [Administration] and "Do I have all my gear?" [Supply].

There's no need to send the new guy all over the base looking for 27 different signatures. The retiree in the yellow rain slicker down by a cave somewhere who hands out kick balls does not need to see our faces before we start standing duty.

Honestly.

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