The Great French Mustache Strike of 1907
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...
Also special forces are expensive to replace and are out in areas that could have NBC related threats and have some of the biggest beards I've ever seen.
My Grandfather was born before the days of safety razors and tells me that Navy personnel were able to petition to avoid shaving on account of delicate skin (something about the salt water and fresh air). I think anybody who could grow a beard would have done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_triangle_of_the_face
I never thought that mustaches had a health / self preservation / natural selection origin, but it could very well have been the case. Shaving every day without modern tools and products could easily cause infections, which in that area could prove fatal.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/beards-now-p...
Special forces too on ops. Some Scots regiments like Scots Guards still allow beards for Sergeants and possibly other ranks. They might even still encourage it.
Turns out to be more complex than I thought. "The CO may permit all personnel (except Royal Marines) to request to wear full set beards. RM personnel may wear moustaches at their discretion."
The moustache only ban seems to be Queen Victoria's doing.
It's up to the CO if the resulting beard is good enough. Uneven growth, e.g. scrappy, is unacceptable. The advised maximum time to achieve a sufficiently thorough beard is 2 weeks. lol
More here: https://www.forces.net/news/beard-royal-navy-tradition
As far as I know it goes back to the days of Drake. No idea if there's variations for submariners or COs. I know there are some variations of regs and traditions for the silent service.
Sorry for the confusion :)
Worth to mention the Pioneers of the French Foreign Legion are one of the only soldiers (that I know) who can wear beards. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#PioneersThe conversation is set at the Cafe Lilas (which is still open today, though mostly as a tourist trap), with Evan Shipman, a fellow American writer and journalist.
“He’s in trouble already,” Evan said.
“How?”
“They’re changing the management,” Evan said. “The new
owners want to have a different clientele that will spend
some money and they are going to put in an American bar.
The waiters are going to be in white jackets, Hem, and
they have been ordered to be ready to shave off their
mustaches.”
“They can’t do that to André and Jean.”
“They shouldn’t be able to, but they will.”
“Jean has had a mustache all his life. That’s a dragoon’s
mustache. He served in a cavalry regiment.”
“He’s going to have to cut it off.”
I drank the last of the whisky.
“Another whisky, Monsieur?” Jean asked. “A whisky,
Monsieur Shipman?” His heavy drooping mustache was a part
of his thin, kind face, and the bald top of his head
glistened under the strands of hair that were slicked
across it.
“Don’t do it, Jean,” I said. “Don’t take a chance.”
“There is no chance,” he said, softly to us. “There is
much confusion. Many are leaving. Entendu, Messieurs,” he
said aloud. He went into the café and came out carrying
the bottle of whisky, two large glasses, two ten-franc
gold-rimmed saucers and a seltzer bottle.
“No, Jean,” I said.
He put the glasses down on the saucers and filled them
almost to the brim with whisky and took the remains of the
bottle back into the café. Evan and I squirted a little
seltzer into the glasses.
“It was a good thing Dostoyevsky didn’t know Jean,” Evan
said. “He might have died of drink.”
“What are we going to do with these?”
“Drink them,” Evan said. “It’s a protest. It’s direct action.”
On the following Monday when I went to the Lilas to work
in the morning, André served me a bovril, which is a cup
of beef extract and water. He was short and blond and
where his stubby mustache had been, his lip was as bare as
a priest’s. He was wearing a white American barman’s coat.(there are two distinct expressions to denote a strike in French, one for when the right is holding power, one for when the left is)