That’s irrelevant. If regulations state that a soldier is not allowed to wear civilian clothes, then the fact that his FOB was attacked and he ran out there in civilian clothes because it was an emergency doesn’t change the fact that he was in violation of a regulation before and independant of the attack.
Your story is not comparable.
Nobody cares what kind of underwear your wearing in the military unless its an inspection. SecDef knows it.
I believe The Dalai Lama said it best:
“Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly”.
Before you respond. Think, grasshopper, think!
OK, let’s make this clear. Yes, it’s against the rules. No, no one would care. If anyone said anything about it, they’d be laughed at hysterically. It’s like pulling that proverbial tag off the mattress. It’s like doing 58 in a 55. It’s like jaywalking at 3 in the morning.
That’s why this is so funny. It’s like a surgeon that happens upon a car wreck. He jumps out, runs up to the scene, gives CPR, performs open heart surgery, delivers a baby, and a whole bunch of other stuff, saving 6 lives. A reporter comes up and says “So what was going through your head at the time?” and he goes “I hope they don’t take my license. I’m not even scrubbed up!” Ba-dum-CSH!
Someone said stepping onto the tarmac doesn’t make you braver. I’d like to add that it doesn’t make you nicer either. I guarantee those guys saying “You can’t do that over here!” are really saying “Look at me! I’m in a war! But I’m so gung-ho, I sleep with my weapon on burst! Someone tell me how tough I am!”
And as for the red=target thing…yeah, if he’s jumping up and down, waving his hands in the air. But he’s not. He’s in a normal, sandbagged position. I’d wager money that he could see his targets and they could see him just fine. He’s in a building, for Og’s sake. They know where he is. If anything, the attackers should avoid red.
As I understand it, the rules about non-civvie are in place mostly because of the military conventions state you can consider any ‘soldier’ wearing civvies to be a spy and thus shootable on site, whereas a uniformed soldier theoretically has rights as a prisoner of war.
That being said, being on base pretty much precludes you being a spy, and the Taliban et al have as much respect for the conventions as they do for anything not from their perversion of Islam: None.
That means the only reason for ‘no-civvies’ is just some attempt at discipline. I have no idea if it would work.
OK, this should be hilarious. I’m going to text my brother and ask him what undies he wore while on his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Maybe I won’t even tell him why I’m asking… 
Well, he laughed his ass off but he answered me! 
He went regimental, both dressed and sleeping (I asked about chafing but he did not respond to that bit). He also said that guys could and did wear anything (underwear-wise) they wanted to (20th Special Forces Group, Afghanistan).
Anecdote from the field.
I concur, and if you re-read my first post, that’s what I was trying to say. I think. 
The only other thing to consider of value is how hugely personality based militaries are. One crusty WO who saw I had my nipples pierced whilst playing in the sandbox asked me what my boyfriend’s name was before laughing and carrying on…yet another threatened to have me charged, and have the medic remove them.
I guarantee some crusty sergeant had his blood boiling when he saw those pink shorts, but there’s frak all he can do about it now!
And that, in the end, is what makes me happy for the young specialist there.