No, I don’t. Maybe it should be. But it’s not. If it was their responsibility, why would the Army and the Air Force have tattoo inspections post-MEPS?
When you leave Basic and arrive at your unit (or you go to AIT, whatever) your tattoos are not re-inspected. For the Army, the buck stops at the Reception BN. For you, it stops at Basic. Wouldn’t you agree that the final inspection is done by those responsible? Sticking to the Army, it’s the responsibility or AG BN Drill Sergeants. Once they give the tattoo an ok, it’s clear. They’re responsible for making that decision. If it’s something blatanly obvious like a “Hitler Pissing on Jesus” tattoo, then MEPS will turn them away. You don’t need to be trained to notice something like that. But MEPS is just a pre-screen. It’s not their responsibility.
So sticking to the OP, it would have been decent of a recruiter who was asked repeatedly about the tattoos to send pictures to the Benning drill sergeants before processing him. But that’s neither policy nor procedure. So they can’t really be faulted for not going that extra mile.
But yeah, it’s gotta suck for the guy. Nothing Ill think about before going to bed or anything. Like those babies and that barber shop lady… Now THAT’s fucked up!! This merely “kinda sucks”.
Just wanted to clear up one thing on what Bear_Nenno said. While the 30th AG Drill Sergeants do the tattoo inspection, its actually the 30th AG commander who makes the final decision…based on the DS recommendations of course.
Fallacy of sweeping generalization. The system is in fact quite consistent. You are projecting a statistical anamoly onto the entire distribution.
Would all of you people bickering over whose responsibility this was read the fucking article:
When the question is so borderline that it has to be kicked up to a general officer to decide, it’s sort of stupid to be arguing over whether the recuiter or the drill sergant screwed up.
Isn’t that what I just said?
From Captain Amazing’s link in the second post:
From the news article:
It sounds to me like this is the grounds for objection. The code also states that tatoos can be removed at army expense.
I’d say the recruiter fucked up not knowing that (unless it was just brought in last week), or maybe the guy just forgot to tell the recruiter the extent of his tatoo. Also, someone, either the guy, or whoever got rid of him, fucked up by not going in for removal.
I’m not sure I agree with the policy, but I have to say it was explained surprisingly well on the website - I don’t know if everyone follows it though. And based on what I’ve heard of army recruiters they have a tendancy to ignore problems.
This thread got to the second page overnight? Wow.
I see others are arguing better than I could (World Eater, in particular) so I’ll leave this to those who are more capable.
But a system can be judged based on how it deals with the borderline cases, even if there are very few of them.
After all, if a recruit has no tattoos, then it will not be a issue. And if a recruit has racist tattoos covering a large percentage of his body, then this also is a fairly straightforward case. It’s in cases where there might be some doubt–likee the one described in the OP–that the system needs to be rigorous enough to work properly, and should have a enough checks in place to ensure that it does.
Thanks dude, it was a lucky post. 
Why? They do their jobs well, and the colors of their skin doesn’t affect that.
Because they’re promoting anarchy in an organization where life and death depend on rules, order, command and control. Not to mention that they’re blatantly defying regulations for the simple sake of defying them.
Part of a soldier’s job is to conform to regulations. By getting tattoos on their ears and knuckles, they are not doing their job well. Why can’t they just wait until they get out to get those types of tats?
Maybe discharge would be a bit harsh though. Perhaps a slap upside the head and removal of those tattoos would be the answer. However, if they refuse to have them removed, then they should be discharged.
Just a FYI.
BTW I thought that the US armed forces didn’t take felons???
That’s a good point and something I was considering today. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess firearms, so that kind of makes being a soldier difficult. If it was a jail tattoo, then he would have been a felon anyway. So if he’s not a felon, it’s not a jail tat…
“‘Curiouser and curiouser’, thought Alice”
I really am considering sending some emails to those involved to see what the official decision was, and WHY.
After looking at the pics. The tats really look more like “nerd tats” than “bad guy tats.”
Regulations are regulations, regardless of how mundane and pointless they may be. Father has spent 20 years in the military. Brother has eczema and asthma, DQ’d before MEPS. WAAAAAY before MEPS. Me, on the other hand, have one single screw in my right knee. To Enlist (or correctly, direct commission now), I would have to have it removed. Pointless painful surgery to remove a vestigial surgical implement. Could do more damage than leaving it. Did I mention I got a 99 on the ASVAB. Did you know you can’t score higher than that. I still wasn’t worthy. My dad shakes his head every day. He works in logistics, so he has to fill all the holes. Square pegs fit in square holes, but apparently round ones don’t.
I’m not sure if this “justifies” it, but perhaps it will explain it a bit better.
From what I’ve seen of the army folks on the military base on which we had contracts, they dress similarly in the summer to the uniform requirements in the Air Force.
That is that they have the uniform sleeves rolled up in a certain way. Also, they wear short sleeved tee shirts for PT. Also, army personnel doing “base beautification” are allowed to wear the short sleeved tee shirts.
So there are times when he’d be showing his tattoos even during army training, or army sponsored tasks.
I disagree. I think regulations about such things ought to be intentionally vague in order to allow for human judgment. This ain’t presidential succession; it’s some tattooed slacker wanting someone else to deal with his own poor decisions.