 Good afternoon and welcome to this special Facebook live event hosted by the Army G1 and the Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston. Today the Army G1 senior enlisted advisors and the Sergeant Major of the Army will discuss key changes to the Army Regulation 670-1 and announce significant changes to the Army grooming standard. Throughout the event we're going to take questions from you in the audience, both here in the Pentagon Auditorium and online. So make sure you get those questions into the chat box below and then here in the room we have a microphone set up. Come stand behind socially distanced of course and we'll do that throughout the event as possible. So we'll get to as many of those as we can but let's go ahead and get started. I'm Sergeant First Class Will Rainier. I'll be co-moderating today's discussion. And I'm Sergeant First Class Evans. Please help me welcome our panel today. So from Army G1 we have the policy branch Sergeant Major, Sergeant Major Brian Sanders. From Army G1 Sergeant Major we have Sergeant Major Clark. And gentlemen please help me welcome Sergeant Major of the Army SMA Grinston. We'll open the floor for opening remarks from Sergeant Major Grinston. So you looked at all the recommendations. I'm going to stop you right here SMA. It looks like your microphone is not transmitting out. If we can get that in the booth. We're getting comments that his microphone is not transmitting out on the stream. It's interesting. Hello. Hello. Can I hear you Sergeant Major? They can hear me. Okay. Okay. This is going to be great. Can you hear me? Somebody type of great. I know you can hear me in the audience. That's what happens you know. When you're Sergeant Major of the Army everybody's got to make jokes. Of course I can hear you Sergeant Major. I'm sitting right here. So I'm hoping everyone out in Facebook live can actually hear me now. We'll kind of work from here and see how this goes. So I really appreciate it. You missed my excitement in the beginning. I'm still excited about all these changes. So we're really excited about the changes that are coming up. And I wanted to thank the G1 team and the soldiers that came to do the panel. The G1, the soldiers that made those recommendations to the panel. They made them to us as the senior leaders. We said hey put this panel together. Thanks for all those folks that involved this to get us to this point so we can roll these things out. So we looked at the recommendations. The panel made those recommendations to the senior leaders and we said yeah these are great. And that's what we're going to roll out today. So I'm excited about doing this. But I just have to remind everybody with any good policy it really boils down to good leaders too. So once we change the standards we just got to make sure everybody knows about them. That's where given plenty of time to talk about these things. But without leadership any policy is not as good as it should be until we actually get the leaders to understand what this policy means. So leadership still matters. We have to have time to say here's what our standards are. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We have to know it. We have said it. And then ultimately we'll enforce the standards. And that's what's great about army and said well this is just what we do. And these aren't about male and female. This is about an army standard and how we move forward with the army and being a more diverse inclusive team. We take recommendations from our soldiers and then we move forward with those recommendations. So again I'm really excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Yes ma'am. We have a lot discussed today. So let's get started. On our about February 26th the army will publish the updated AR 670-1. Sergeant Major Clark what can soldiers expect from this new update? All right. Thank you Sergeant Evans for the question. So today at 1600 you will be able to go to the army publishing directorate to download the new AR 670-1 and DAPAM 670-1. But I want to preface my statements before I get into what's going to be in there with there's going to be 30 days before that regulation becomes effective. The purpose behind that is to allow for soldiers and leaders to read through the regulation, provide an understanding to make sure that their commands and soldiers are aware of the policy changes that will be made. And then it gives the organization 30 days to get within compliance of the new guidance that will be within the regulation. So some of the big changes that you will see in there as you know we're now wearing the Army Green Service uniform. So some guidance that we've been working on since June of 2019 will finally be published for you to be able to read and enforce within your organizations. Another big change that you will see is the soldier sleeve insignia for former wartime service formerly or normally called the combat patch. The name has now changed to the soldier sleeve insignia for military operations and hostile conditions. And one of the big rationales behind that change was for us to allow commanders more flexibility and efficiency in the process for recognizing soldiers who are engaged in combat operations that can be recognized with a combat patch. Some other things that we're also going to add is we created an insignia for the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So things like that, big ticket items, you will see those items in the publication of the AR 670-1. Great. And in addition to that, Sergeant Major Clark, we are also authorizing more options for nursing mothers combined with the temporary promotion policy that we unveiled just a few months ago. Really excited to see these changes for our Army moms. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Absolutely. So what we will now authorize is for soldiers who are breastfeeding to be able to wear a specialized shirt under their Army combat uniform that allows for them to breastfeed. They will also be authorized to remove their Army combat uniform coat. Or if they are in ASU's dress mesh uniform or the Army green service uniform, they can remove the top in order to breastfeed their children if they need to do so. Great. Thank you. You mentioned that there was a panel that had convened, and so I want to just learn more about this panel and understand that. So Sergeant Major Sanders, that was kind of one of your main tasks in this entire process. So can you help us just understand what that process looks like, how we developed these recommendations, how they were given to the panel, and just really the entire process so we can understand how all this kind of came to be? Roger. So I will tell you, initially when the SMA gave me this guidance, I thought it was an impossible task of how to make this significant change for the Army. How do I figure this out? So the SMA, he gave some direction of utilizing our MAGCOM CSMs to get a lot of representation, a very diverse representation from throughout our force, that being force comm, trade-out, use of SOC, use of reckon, and a myriad of other elements that are out there, as well as grabbing SMA experts from Walter Reed, Officer of the Surgeon General, and even MAGCOM. So what we were able to do, there were some recommendations that had been receiving from the field for over the past six months to a year, and what I was able to do was provide these recommendations to the panel members that were given to us from these major commands, as well as give to the subject matter experts, and what they were able to do is really explore, deep dive, really look at how can we get after these and make the appropriate modifications if necessary, really just to sum it up a little bit. Okay, and then SMA, those recommendations were consolidated and provided to you. Can you speak to what kind of happened after that? I do want to back up about the panel and how important that was. What we didn't want to do is take recommendations throughout the Army and just give it to, you know, I'd say the more senior folks in the Army and look at it because we look at it differently. So it was really important for me and for all of us to have people on the panel that were somebody, you know, I'm a little over 50, not much, but to have, you know, younger soldiers to say, here's our recommendation. So we had 24-year-olds all the way to 55 on that panel and that was extremely important. But once the panel made those recommendations, then they brought them. We had the Assistant Secretary of Manpower and Reserves, one of his deputies, Mr. Williams, sit on that chair and they said, here's the recommendations. Here's how the panel voted and we accepted all the recommendations. I didn't go in and go, nope, don't want that, don't want this. I trusted that the panel had the appropriate information. We brought in the appropriate, you know, experts to explain why these things were important and we had soldiers on the panel. So when they brought them to us, it was fairly easy for me to go. I trusted that the panel had the right ideas and I just accepted what they had taken to me. Do you want to add some? Sure. I'll add to what the SMA is saying. Just as leading up to this event, I saw a lot of questions on social media about, you know, who's making the decisions for this panel. And just to kind of add to what the SMA was saying, there was representation from operations, operational support, and forced sustainment to even include, you know, females who were in combat arms, MOSs to really speak to their experiences and how some of these changes will impact their ability to perform their job. But most importantly, some of the points that they were driving home is to feel inclusive with their squad, the individuals that they're serving and training with. And I will tell you, those individuals who were handpicked by their leaders to come in and provide that information was really critical in helping the panel understand the decisions and how important they were going to make. And the SMA mentioned two-star generals all the way down to sergeants. And they wore civilian clothes so that every person in there didn't have to worry about the rank of the other individual. Every person had an equal voice to voice their concern on each topic that was presented to them. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. So the first change we're going to announce today is the earrings. SMA, let's hear about it. Let's hear about it. Yeah. There we go. You know, it was really another reason why I keep going back to the panelists. Another reason is, you know, I'm just going to be honest. If you'd asked me before a panel, I'd said, no, why would we need earrings? We didn't have them. And that's why I mean, I trusted the panel. I had a good deliberation. And they brought and said, hey, we want earrings. And I said, well, I trust the panel. And the panel says this is their recommendation. And they voted and everybody had an equal vote. We're not going to talk specifically on, you know, how the votes came out. But they, the majority ruled and this is one of those things. And our soldiers said, hey, we're going to wear earrings. Yeah, we wanted to do this. We're not going to do it in combat operations. But if you want to put some earrings on, I think there'll be more guidance to come out. But when we even had the deliberation about how we're going to implement this, you know, is the helmet on or is it off? If the helmet's on, you may take the earrings out. But I think this is really good for Army. And if you want to wear earrings in combat uniform, wear the earrings. Now, I know we're all excited about the earrings. I am especially, but we're not going to move to it yet. We're going to wait till the Allerite come out. Right? Sir Major Clark and Sir Major Sanders? Yeah. Okay. Let me just drive it home again. Somebody has to right now put it in their head. In their head. In my, Sergeant Alvarez, in my office, she's like, sir, major. So, yeah, I think that still applies. Thanks. Yes. 30 days from now, 670-1 comes into effect. And then an Allerac will follow after that, authorizing the wear of earrings. So, for whatever reason, let's say the Allerac gets held up in process, you know, wait for the Allerac before you, you know, decide to don your earrings. That's very key. Yeah. It's a very important note that the grooming standards are separate from AR 670-1. And so if we could, Sir Major Clark, just explain why those two things were separated. Absolutely. So one, to make sure that we don't cause confusion. As mentioned, we've been working with the changes for 670-1 since June of 2019. And so the process for publishing a regulation, it's a very deliberate process and it's that way for a reason, but it takes time. So as the regulation is going through that process, decisions are still being made on the wearing appearance of the uniform. And in order to insert any of those decisions in there, we would have to start the process all over for that regulation. So to avoid delaying that regulation any further, we have to wait for it to be published before we can release any additional guidance. If we were to release an Allerac for grooming standards prior to the regulation coming out, what would happen is once the regulation is published, it would then supersede the Allerac. And then you would lose your ability to wear your earrings. So we have to be very deliberate and strategic in how we roll the information out to ensure that we don't have basic policy fratricide. All right, we've got our first question from Facebook. So that didn't take very long. So Sir Major Sanders, I'll give this to you. Can you explain the restrictions on the earring first? And then the second one, was there any discussion? Is this a gender-neutral standard? Can you just discuss the man versus woman as it related to earrings? Let me sound bad with a man versus woman. So I'll definitely start with the other guidance. So as far as the guidance right now for the Army Service Uniform for the dimensions of the earring, it's still the same for the Army Combat Uniform. The only difference is female soldiers will not wear pearl earrings in the Army Combat Uniform. You can still wear pearl in the Service and Dress Uniform, but not the Army Combat Uniform. And you will not wear earrings in a tactical training setting or a combat deployment. As far as gender-neutral, that's a negative at this point. Right now it's strictly for female soldiers. Can't say what happened in the future, but for now it's for female soldiers. Are we ready to move on to the next one? It's by me to kind of add some of the why behind. So as we discussed, there were several medical professionals brought in to brief the panel on different things. One being a dermatologist, the other one being a behavior health specialist. And I will tell you, learned quite a bit from those individuals on how certain policies that we had in place impacted female soldiers. So as we are trying to get our arms around the corrosives in the Army, things like suicide and sharp, we've learned some different things that may impact female soldiers in reference to being a female in a masculine Army. And, you know, our attrition rates for females are higher than males. And as we started looking into those things, we realized that the need to feel as a female and be a soldier at the same time earrings kind of helped bridge the gap in soldiers who want to serve and be soldiers but also want to feel like a female at the same time. So that was very educational to us and how some of that can impact individuals who may be feeling depressed because they don't feel like a female. That played a very large part in helping educate the panel when they made their decisions. All right, we do have a lot of topics, so we'll keep the conversation moving as it pertains to women and women who are serving our country and the ways that we're becoming more inclusive. One of the things that came up was minimum hair length. We saw this as we opened up Ranger School to women and seeing, you know, if they didn't make it through while they were leaving Ranger School and now they were out of regs. So let's do Sergeant Major Sanders. I'm sorry, no, Sergeant Major Clark, back to you to discuss the minimum hair length for women. Absolutely, I'll touch on this and I'll also let Sergeant Major Sanders jump on this. So what we found is we implemented policies such as Soldier 2020, which is basically where we begin to bring females into combat arm MOSs. As female soldiers were going through certain training such as Ranger School and decided to shave their head again to be more inclusive with their peers that they were training with, technically they were out of regulation during that timeframe in which they were doing it. And so we obviously saw that there was a contradiction between what we had in place and really where the army is going. And there really was no rationale on setting a set minimum length for the female hair. So the change in the regulation will now allow females to not have a minimum length requirement for their hairstyle. I'll jump on. You know, when you go through Ranger School, and I'm sure maybe a little different than when I went, I don't know, 1990. But, you know, that was one of the things, you know, be no hair, be no child, be no sleep. So I happened to be in Bravo Company and that was just one of their models. And imagine if you couldn't do that, you know, you weren't like everybody else in the company. So it is really important to be inclusive, to be a part of that team. And we shouldn't, you know, punish anybody who says, hey, that's a standard. And why do we have that standard? That was the whole joys of looking into this, is that we had an opportunity to go, is that something we need to do or why are we doing that? And, you know, another thing too, if you look on this slide too, the female soldier down there with her children, she was actually one of the first women to graduate from within West Virginia Army National Guard. And she was one of the ones who brought this topic and, you know, something for us to explore. And at first we looked at it from the realm of, you know, special forces selection, you know, range of school, now that our female soldiers are breaking barriers, but we wanted to take it further. You know, should we just only be for school? It should be for women's identity overall. It's a woman's choice to have hair or not. And that's something we really wanted to get after as well. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. So the next changer we're going to discuss is ponytails. I know there's been changes to the ponytails' hair length and it not having to be encapsulated for a certain length. So let me just say, Andrews, can you expound on that? For the short ponytail? Yes. Correct. So yeah, the short ponytail, this has been a one that's been up for debate. Like how can you force something out of nothing? You know, if you don't have the texture or length of hair to form a bun, what do you do? So we wanted to say, hey, you know what, it's okay to be able to wear a ponytail on the back of your head as long as it's not as wide as a back of your head or, you know, impairs the proper wear of your headgear. So this was one of those ones that the panel really looked at and said it just makes sense. Why not? I mean, as long as it's, you know, professional and appearance and it's neat and well-groomed, why not? So here we are, you know, being able to, you know, have an option. And from the medical perspective that the dermatologists really put right now, soldiers who are forcing hair to go into a bun is really pulling on the hair, causing hair loss, alopecia. And what we want to do, along with diversity and inclusion, but from the medical health and wellness aspect, is how do we make sure we keep our soldiers healthy? How do we go opposite of hair loss? So the best way to do that is to look at an option. And this is our option right here. Now, SMA, we saw a lot on your social media, especially over the Block Leave. This topic is very emotionally charged for a lot of people. So what, you know, what kind of went into, what were some of the things that you were hearing and your thoughts on this topic? This is really, how do you, you know, I had actually a clap. You didn't see it out there, but there were people in here clapping for this. So, you know, in what he's saying to me, how do I go from, if I want, you know, if I want to go from medium to long hair, how do I do that? How do I, and then, you know, why do I have to have my hair in a bun? So, and how do I do that? Sometimes the texture of my hair won't allow me to do that. So why wouldn't we have a, you know, a policy that it is a little bit more creative based off the texture of my hair? And if I want to go, you know, from a medium hairstyle to a long hairstyle, you have to have some kind of short ponytail or you just, you know, you just had it and once you cut it off, you can't ever, you know, go from one hairstyle to the other. So I think this is really good for the irony. All right. We said short ponytails. How about long ponytails? What do we, what did the panel come back with on, on Long Point? First, what did the panel say originally, and then as we came back to that, we'll go SMA to discuss how that evolved. Roger. So initially, you know, the recommendation was to have long ponytails for female soldiers, not the guys, for female soldiers in all uniforms. And I was strictly a no, like, hey, keep it in Army physical fitness uniform only. But after some talking, you know, some more recommendations were brought up and this is why there was a benefit of having a very diverse, you know, panel from the combat arts perspective as well. And just soldiers in general. And they were able to look at, you know, effectiveness and functionality along with the other, you know, good, you know, nice to have. And what we looked at was, you know, making this a yes under certain conditions. And some of those conditions are, you know, conducting physical training in the Army combat uniform, utility uniforms. And also, you know, you're, you know, wearing certain kind of helmets like a CVC helmet or advanced combat helmet to be able to have the option for taking your bun down in a pony tail and tucking that here in the back of your, you know, your neck down into your Army combat uniform coat in order to be able to put that helmet on so it can sit without an impairing your vision or making it uncomfortable when you're trying to execute, you know, effective training or combat operations. And for me, I thought this is where it really, you know, it's part about readiness and everybody that's ever shot their rifle. You know, especially, you know, having something additional on the back of your head, push that helmet down over your eyes while shooting a rifle is miserable. So, and it's, you know, it's males and females. And when somebody said, well, imagine, sorry, Major, you got a bun on the back of your head and that's actually, you get your, you know, your combat vest on, then you have a bun and that's also pushing down. So to me, it may, you know, it would help our readiness to undo that. And then how do you, how would you wear your helmet if you're an aviator when that thing goes all the way over if you had long hair? It's just, it's impossible. If you had it in a bun, it just doesn't work. So we just made our, you know, policy a line with that. We're not going to have, everybody's going to have a long ponytail if you have long enough hair and you're going to put it in a bun. But if you're on the range or somewhere like that and you need to be more effective and more ready as a soldier, let's do it. So that's why we fully supported this one. Great. And I want to stay with hair. So Sergeant Major Clark, let's discuss. One of the regulations was about different hairstyles and only being allowed to have one hairstyle on the head. Can you talk about the discussion that was had and the decision that we made on that topic? Yes. So for under the previous guidance, you were only authorized to wear one hairstyle. But as we, if we probably go back and look at some soldiers that we've all had at some point in time, we probably realized that they probably had multiple hairstyles at once, whether they had locks and then had it pulled into a bun or into a braid or in a case and it still presented a professional look and it didn't interrupt good order and discipline of the soldier. So the panel took a look at this and as you can see some of the imagery that is being broadcast and as you look, these soldiers have multiple hairstyles and it doesn't interfere with their ability to properly wear their headgear. They still have a professional appearance. There was no reason not to go with the recommendations of the panel to allow the multiple hairstyles in uniform. Now, Sergeant Evans, if you could just kind of explain for the group just some of the different things, the options that women now have from your own experience dealing with this issue. Sure. I mean you can have braids and put it in a bun. You can do a braid to the side if you have shorter hair to the front or to the back. So you can wear multiple hairstyles at once and it does make it easier when trying to adhere to the standard and being able to give you more options, especially if you have longer hair. It just gives you more options to adhere to the standard. So I think that was a win for us. So Sergeant Major Clark, what can you tell us about the new changes to makeup and nails? All right. So with fingernail polish, the soldiers will be able to, female soldiers will be able to wear fingernail polish as long as the colors are not extreme or eccentric and presents a professional appearance. And I'll allow Sergeant Major Sanders to kind of add a little bit more to that. Yes. This was a good one too. And this is one of those ones we made in gender neutral in a sense. We authorized male soldiers to wear a clear nail polish. And just to kind of jump a little bit more on what Sergeant Major Clark said it, you just got to make sure when it comes to that professional and we say these extreme colors, that's not your yellows, your blues, your purples. Those are definitely the unprofessional extreme colors that we don't want. And as we come out with the alirac, we'll not necessarily tell you what color you can wear, but we'll put it in the frame of the category of acceptable colors that represent professionalism. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Next topic we want to get to is on highlights. Who wants to talk about highlights? So I guess I'll take that one. I want to talk about it. My highlights, this is it. I'm just happy I have hair. Roger, that's always a good thing. Always a good thing. So right now in the regulation, hair dyes are already authorized, but we want to take this further. Hey, female soldiers, even male soldiers, they want to have an opportunity to jazz it up a little bit. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's part of your identity. And in some people like myself, you want to hide the grays. I don't hide them. I let you see them. But some want to maybe hide the gray or someone to have the natural appearance. And we really talked a little bit about what is a natural color. And that natural color is not your natural color. It's a natural color that can be worn for your highlights as a uniform blend of color. So this was one we really looked at from the psychological realm of how do we increase productivity. And when you do that, it's really building upon the identity of the soldier. And that's something we really looked at in the recommendation of highlights. You mentioned yourself. So are you implying that this highlight standard is gender-neutral? It is gender-neutral. So men and women both are authorized a uniform blend of a natural color, not their natural color. Roger. When they brought this to me, part of it was I had someone say, well, I've probably been wearing highlights. I just didn't know that was not allowed. So part of this was what's actually already out there that maybe not everybody understood what the standards were in the beginning and then that's why that whole panel and how we brought experts in and go, this is a highlight. And I wasn't in the panel. I wasn't on the panel. But that's what they explained to me. It was like, here's what this is and this is why the panel recommended that. And a lot of times, some of our soldiers were getting highlights and maybe didn't even know that that was part of the regulation and the leaders didn't know that's a different issue. But just kind of match what we're already doing for our soldiers and say this is allowed. All right, gentlemen. A lot of questions coming in. Again, if you have questions here in the room, you're welcome to stand up and come to the microphone. That signals to us that we have a question here in the room. But from Facebook, we've discussed a lot about women's hair and the different options that they have. How about men's hair and specifically when we start looking at things like twists and locks and hard parts, afros, things like that, were there any discussion on options that men have? On the panel, there weren't any at this time. We just really just kind of stuck with the recommendations. The panel didn't delve off into that realm. But they did want to ensure that female soldiers that have a low cut can have it tapered and have the hard part. That current standard is in the regulation as it stands right now. If having a part where your hair would normally part or if your hair doesn't part naturally, being able to put that hard part. But at this time, no conversation was had during the panel. Right. So we know that words matter, right? And that's something that was addressed in the new standard. So women versus female or offensive words like mohawk, foo manchu, dreadlock. What were some of the conversations, SMA, if you wouldn't mind discussing about some of those terms that maybe are antiquated or offensive in today's culture? This goes back to really a larger thing, diversity, inclusion and look at all our rakes and not just 670-1. Is our verbiage right? Are we being offensive and we don't even know that that has a negative connotation over time? And there were some things. Why would we say mohawk? Why would we say foo manchu? Why would we say that? So just take that language out and say, is it in good order and discipline for our soldiers? And I think that's appropriate. And this is part of a bigger where we look at. Are those microaggressions, those things that we were saying that maybe we didn't know were offensive, that we need to be aware of that? So I think this is appropriate. Just stick to, these are the standards, this is what we're doing, and kind of get some of that language appropriate. Roger. And on top of those words, eccentric and fattish are normally used as weaponized wording. There was one comment that psychologists really brought up during the panel, that those words are often used for certain demographic. And what we want to do is we want to utilize our lexicon and our vocabulary. There's many more words in a dictionary that we can use to describe and replace those words. So eccentric and fattish are definitely those two words we're going to try to get rid of as well as, you know, clarify, you know, what do we mean by professional appearance? That is such a, you know, a subjective term. It's just kind of thrown out there, you know, professional appearance. We want to define by, you know, a well-clean grooming appearance. And so that's what we're planning to get after, too, as we remove and replace the appropriate wording. And Sir Major Sanders, the panel did decide on updating imagery for the AR and the DAPM. Could you tell us a little bit about that and how it's going to illustrate the new changes? Roger. So as you all know, in the current regulation, that's just some outdated, I can't even think of the time frame of when that artwork was done. There were artists who did the artwork at that time, but, you know, we're changing. It's not enough to equip leaders. It's not enough to equip us on what right looks like and what wrong looks like. And I think, you know, with the generation we are now, we want more information and we deserve more information. So the intent behind updating the imagery, more examples, and we actually, you know, we're conducting round two of our photo shoot tomorrow to help get after, you know, giving more imagery, more examples. It really just update, bring it up to the times as an evolving thing as revisions keep going. We can keep updating this thing to be more of a current reflection of what we're talking about in regard to guidance and army policy. Great. Sir Major Clark, any other thoughts on the changes? What kind of sticks out to you? What do you see as maybe the biggest shift culturally for our army? So some additional changes that will come out in further guidance that will not be in 670-1, but again will be published in a separate alirac message is diacritical name tags in the Army Service Uniform. This was a big change to allow for those who have hyphens in their names, who have an accent on their name. As you realize some of those spellings or unique spellings of the names are a part of your identity of who you are, your culture, where you come from. And so to allow those to be worn on the Army Service Uniform with your nameplate I think is a big part of our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts with the soldiers. All right. Once again I'll remind you we are trying to take as many questions as we can online. We're pulling those in right now. Again if you have any questions here in the room you're welcome to stand up. SMA, I guess I'll ask you the same question as what we've discussed today. What were some of the things that really stuck out to you? Well I think the biggest one for me is the earrings and the short ponytail and the long ponytail. It's really progressive on how soldiers can identify with who they are and I think that's what I really learned in this last year is and I would say at fault on this. I used to say we're all soldiers I just see green but I learned even throughout myself is that you don't see me as a soldier. So that's some of those things we're trying to understand is not only are you a soldier but there's other pieces of you that are critical that we need to understand as an army and that's what's important about so that's why I'm so excited about these greenery standards is that some of this is I need to do better as a person to see the people around me to identify that they may identify that I don't understand but we're acknowledging that that we're going to look at that and that's why some of those things that the three I just mentioned are really important to us. Okay we have another question in from the Facebook live just a little bit of clarification on the ponytail is it just a free flowing or is a braid going to be allowed Sergeant Major Sanders do you want to? For the long ponytail correct. Roger for the braid of the ponytail so at long single braid it will be authorized when they are wearing the long ponytail. Correct. Okay good deal. Next question it looks like a lot of these recommendations are significantly geared toward women and specifically women of color were there any male standards and I kind of think I know what you're getting at on this one but you know it does seem like a lot of these new changes are geared toward primarily women of color can we just elaborate and explain kind of why this panel specifically focused on those issues? Sergeant Major Clark. So I'll start on a piece of this so again as the SMA kind of laid out earlier these were the topics that were presented to us there is a process that we have where if you have concerns or issues you can send them to the Uniform Policy Office for consideration to be looked at. So as we looked at these specific ones specifically the short ponytails part of the issues as the dermatologist briefed to the panel was it created alopecia and one third of African-American females were impacted by that alopecia but it also impacted Asian soldiers Latino soldiers other demographics as well so it wasn't geared toward just only African-American women it was geared toward just women in general they broke down the hairstyles in a high medium and low risk to the soldier that basically gave them alopecia and what we found was for soldiers who were transitioning as we mentioned earlier from a short hairstyle to a long hairstyle trying to force their short hair into a bun it put them in the high risk so that was one of the reasons why we made that change it wasn't necessary it just happened to impact one third of African-Americans and of course other minority demographics so it just kind of happened to work out that way based on what the the problem said that was presented to the panel but it it wasn't intentionally designed to go look just for specific demographics to try to improve with. Alright SMA so you know what's coming you know it was inevitable every man in the army wants to know are we getting the beard no okay no we're not that's not one of those things we looked at and I am a man in the army so I may disagree that every man in the army wants a beard so no we're not looking at it there's already an exception to policy for those that have issues with shaving there's already a profile that you can get and you can have a beard there's also religious accommodations and I'll let Sergeant Clark or Sergeant Sanders jump in if I miss anything but there is way but we had not reviewed it and it was not on the docket so right now you will not have a beard I think that you know this is a perfect example of what you talk about when we say you can have policy but it needs leadership the policy does have authorizations for beards and yet still we hear stories all the time of soldiers who feel like they still have to shave and they're forced into shaving even though they have those medical or religious exemptions and to the other side of this you know for the leaders if your soldiers have a valid exception to policy there should be that's a valid exception to policy we have to be acceptance again just because it doesn't look like you or act like you doesn't mean it's right or wrong that's the whole point of being inclusive so if there is an exception to policy to have a beard there should be no leader out there telling a soldier to shave we have to do better than that I'm getting a note it looks like about a third of our facebook live audience dropped off they said we're we're done yes and where the famous quote was if I can't have a beard I'm just going to get out of the army so I don't know we have a great transition program please contact your soldier for life representative and I ask everybody to use it I still think we have the greatest army in the world and we have some great policies and we're constantly looking at how we can get better so yeah why now why is this in 2021 we've had gender integrated units for years we've had desegregated units for decades why are we just now looking at some of these policies that are affecting and becoming more inclusive so I will tell you it may appear like just now but the truth is we've been looking at these for quite some time some of you may or may not be aware of the army people strategy which is approaching its one year university which gets after how we acquire develop employ and retain our soldiers and then those four lines of effort we mesh in diversity equity and inclusion so we've been going through all of the regulations to figure out how can we improve the standards and policies that we have that they are fair and equitable for all soldiers and so that we can obviously get the best talent in the army so if you just take a look at other things like things that we just recently did with temporary promotions that gets after disadvantaged individuals so and there's more coming so this is just we're just getting started with all the different changes to make the army better for you the chief, the SMA the secretary are all very adamant about people first and we are trying to show you the action that is being put behind that mantra of putting you as the soldier first through policy and just to caveat and then I just I've been in the army I think sometimes longer than dirt but our army has changed and it's going to continuously change I was on the air panel when I was a division star major I set through the full three days and I had all the experts come in and explain to me about here and we did that in 2015 we didn't have the pony if you went ten years ago there was no ponytails in physical fitness or anywhere and we made that change and now we've got another change so change is just how the army runs and I know some people don't really like that because change is hard and you get set to what we used to do that may not be what we're going to use in the future so these changes I'd say are just part of the normal progression of the military and how we're trying to be more inclusive and why not people say well why now and I'd say well why not so when you see something that you would ask for or just send it to Sergeant Major Clark use his email right there but send it to us and we'll take a look at it I really trust that our leaders now we don't look at everything but we do over time we'll look at it and we're going to review it again it's going to change three years from now or two years from now there's going to be something else we didn't get that right the changes is here we had enough people bringing that forward we looked at it we're going to make those changes but there'll be more changes in the future okay from Facebook Ali Press caught us was there any discussion on 600-9 revisions as part of inclusivity or just any discussion within this panel and maybe any other discussion happening no so this was a grooming standards panel so there was no discussions about 600-9 the only study that we currently have on it's called the female elite warrior they're doing that up at Natick and they have all the equipment to do the test to say and they brought in some of those females that went through rangers school the one female that graduated through special forces and look at their body style and do we have that correctly I've already asked TreyDoc to go out and see when exactly the last time we studied this and is it time to do another study I've had enough people ask me and every time I meet even if it is a grooming standards forum to ask me about it that I've asked TreyDoc to go back and do a review and say when was the last time we actually reviewed the standards do we have that correct so I've got that out it will take us some time to review that but I've asked TreyDoc to help me out with it alright trying to sift through all the facial hair questions I think we have really hit that one home someone is taking the opportunity here this is Chief Huddleston from the 82nd he's washing with his squad they wanted to take this opportunity and ask if there were any updates coming to the ACFT I know it's not the main topic of this but something that's very on a lot of people's minds so while we have the opportunity would you like to talk about that sure yeah ACFT we have one change that we haven't rolled out yet we're just going to make sure that senior leaders have looked at that we're calling it 3.0 3.0 and we'll get I'm not going to talk about the specifics so we make sure that we are moving in the right direction so there is version 3 that we're coming out with and I'm really excited about that proposal and most people would go back and look at the National Defense Authorization Act and say how has that affected the current ACFT and where it says hey we have to do an independent review we've already started the independent review we got the ideas coming I believe they're going to meet March and the beginning of the summer and then the end of the summer and then the final review is going to be in December so right now with the changes of Army Combat Fitness Test 3.0 and the independent review we still believe we're on track for the ACFT I'm sorry the ACFT in March of 22 so we still have some time to go I still say fitness account so and I'd ask you all to stay on track it's a good test we're going to continue to work real hard to get this right and take it take the test yes please keep up with your physical fitness and if you went in and out take the Army Combat Fitness Test and over time I think you'll do better it's really good for your total fitness so the next question is for Sergeant Major Clark and Sergeant Major Sanders what is how can soldiers make recommendations for changes to AR 670-1 and how will those changes be taken into consideration like future changes yes so there's multiple ways DA Form 2028 is the actual official form to submit to my office directly to myself and Master Sergeant Quintana Mitchell we'll definitely take those into consideration I would ask that you make sure this is vetted through your command team because it could be something as simple as a grammatical change inside policy and regulation but there are bigger items that affect the whole Army and for something of that magnitude it has to go up through the G1 Sergeant Major to the Sergeant Major to see how does this positively affect our Army and that's really just to sum up how something can be as minor or something as major as something that affects the Army how we'll go but if you have any questions I'm easy to find bryan.c.sanders on global just shoot me an e-mail and we'll answer it for you I was brave you know me anyway I'd also say I'm not sure you have to completely vet a recommendation throughout your change of command if you've got something and send it to him and then we the Senior Listing Council meets every quarter every quarter we get together and we come in with recommendations whether that 670-1 grooming standards there's a whole bunch of things we get together and we have experts come brief the Senior Enlisted Council and at that point if we think if the council believes that's that's a valid that's actually how you got the panel so these recommendations were brought to the Senior Enlisted Council we looked at them and said okay if this is really important but what we really didn't want to do is have you know us again because we're more seasoned people in that room we want to get the panel so the Senior Enlisted Council got briefed on these recommendations and then we asked for a panel so anytime you could talk to your Senior Sergeant Majors in your installations across the globe or you can send it straight to him and Sergeant Major Sanders has an obligation to bring it to us we look at it and say do we need to look at it and send those things out for those grooming and that's how you actually got to these recommendations given a number of these recommendations or these new standards are gender specific we had a question about the ending of the transgender ban and allowing transgendered people to come and serve as long as they meet the Army standard I think the answer should be pretty obvious but can we just state out there just how these gender specific standards will impact transgendered soldiers so I would tell you I think you're referencing the guidance that was put out by the Secretary of Defense yesterday so what we as the Army are doing now are taking a look at our policy providing recommendations to the Army Senior Leaders so that we can get a decision on how we are going to support the Secretary of Defense's guidance on supporting transgender so there is more to come and more conversations to be held and then once those decisions are made we are definitely going to notify the field on how we are going to do our part just to be clear it started with the President when he said I'm going to sign the Executive Order but it does take us some time to review the policy I mean we had a policy in 2016 that changed there was another Executive Order that was signed by the President at the time and then we made a change this is again I talked about that change it's been every time I've been in the Army for a long time it's just things changed we were looking at that we'll have to adjust or not and see here's the standard did we get that right and then what that means so we get a little bit of work to do the good news is we've changed several times on this and we had a policy to review it and then publish another policy make sure it aligns with what we're doing today and to be clear the gender specific standards that a soldier will follow will be tied to the gender marker inside the Dears program I'm just going to say right now you know yes but let's make sure we go back and review the policy that we have do we have it right if you were in Dears and that was your gender marker or if you changed at that point that was what we were doing that's still there but again we're going to like any change we're going to review it and say that we have that right so whatever policy we have that is still in effect but that doesn't mean we're not going to look at it we just got new guidance from the Secretary of Defense and the President and it's time to go back okay to the force one more time you know because each year people get out of the Army about 60,000 at the active component about 130,000 every year leave active gardeners every year so again we got the guidance let's review what the policy is and then we'll come back out and say let's review it do we have that correct reeducate the force because that's part of that it's just like this with the grooming standards it's about getting this message out to the force then we say here's what we're going to do and then here's the date that you can enforce the standards and move to this instead of here's what we think and we believe we've got the guidance I would just ask for a little bit of time for us to review that and put that out one more time great we'll do one last question and it's a leadership question so this is from Samantha Webb on Facebook who wants to ask about that phrase what are the standards discretion and really this is kind of a leadership point how do we what guidance do we have for our leaders when we're saying exercise discretion to make sure that they are getting it right more often than not I think specifically for the grooming standards that's I think what Sir Major Clark was trying to say those those graphics maybe I was drawing those I'm not very good now my daughter she's really good so she would have done much better than I am we need to update that that helps us with clarity that does help us with clarity but anytime that you feel that maybe we don't have it right in the commander's discretion there are other levels that's what's great about the Army there's other levels can say hey maybe I disagree with the way I read this so what's great about my Army we're allowed to do that and say hey can we look at this and then you either submit the form or you notify us maybe we don't have that right but I think it's really important on some of the graphics that Sir Major Clark was talking about is to get that out so we can do better with technology that we have today to help us inform so there's not as much commander's discretion when you have a very bland piece of paper and it's blank it's hard because that's where you get well I believe it says this if we can get a better graphic and it'll help us depict that I believe that's where we're going and if you think about it every policy doesn't fit every situation in our Army perfectly otherwise we wouldn't have exceptions to that policy and so there are instances where a commander unit can be in a unique environment where there is a gray area that may come to what the regulation says and so the commander's discretion allows them to be able to make a decision obviously probably consulting legal and things of that nature that is best for that organization and those soldiers in that situation great thank you so much and I want to thank everyone who asked a question would like to thank those of you here in the audience who joined us the slides that you saw today we're going to make sure that we're posting those a lot of material will be coming out through media channels down through the command channels and if I'm not mistaken these will be the AR670-1 will be out for the field to review 1600 today is what we're looking at on Army Publishing Directorate and again keep in mind that these changes don't come into effect until after that grace period is come down so keep an eye out across all the Army social media channels to find more information, more graphics more messages just things to help you as soldiers to know the standard and leaders to set and enforce the standard so Sergeant Major of the Army, Grinston would you like to kind of close this out with any parting thoughts I would just like to say thanks to the Pogue Affairs folks and those that put this together this is really important for Army it's important for us to message this so for those in the audience and those in the the online audience make sure you get this out and say and voice your opinion and say hey what are the things you need to see and then let us know it may not come tomorrow but we will do our best to look at those things that we need to do and I'm really proud of the team for putting this together thank you. Yeah I want to thank Sergeant First Class Evans for co-moderating Thank you for inviting me I appreciate it and thank everyone for watching that concludes our event today we look forward to the comments that are going to come after this the the pitchforks and the torches that are coming to the the Pentagon right now no we'll get through this and so we really appreciate everyone joining us thank you so much thank you have a good day everybody