Real story time, about a time I looked like a rolling bag of donuts on base, and a run-in with some officers.
We had been in the field, five or six days. When I'm in the field I do not blouse my boots. I had five days worth of stubble, uniform with looked like crap, etc. We have all been there. We had a marine have an allergic reaction to something, so I ended up going to the ER at the hospital at Camp Lejeune with him. I was hanging out in the ER, just leaning against the nurses station shooting the shit, and in walks the base commander, and a rear admiral from the medical corps. Some sort of facilities inspection.
These guys and their entourage go over to the nurses station to just chat for a minute with the staff. I go from leaning against the nurses station to just kind of standing at an at-ease, those two flags and their entourage just keep giving me the dirty look. Nobody actually says anything, but if looks killed, I would have died there.
One of the officers from their group, a lieutenant colonel, walked over to me, looks at my collar, and says, "hey doc, how are you doing?". I explained I just came in from the field with a sick Marine. His demeanor changed entirely and from that point on it was okay.
It wasn't like I could slip away to the head to change cammies, shave, get a haircut, and get myself looking good. But it sure was a tense few minutes.
I absolutely understand the policy and directive he put out, you know if the division commanding officer is noticing these things, it's not like they are small things or infrequent findings.