Each service’s senior enlisted leader serves as the standard-bearer for dress and appearance standards, and their uniforms are typically immaculate.
But Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi has issued a public apology after appearing in a picture that showed him falling short — literally.
“This one is on me for sure, actually, thanks to those of you who alerted me to it,” Flosi wrote in a Wednesday post on his Facebook page.
Flosi’s post is a photo of him awarding an airman a coin on a flightline. While the younger airman is wearing the Operational Camouflage Pattern uniform, or OCP, Flosi is in his service dress uniform, commonly called ‘blues’ in the Air Force — but his tie comes up, well, a little short of the Air Force Instruction 36-2903. The regulation requires that the tip of the tie worn with the service’s dress uniform “must cover a portion of the belt buckle but cannot extend below the bottom of the belt buckle.”
But in the picture, Flosi’s tie stops well above his belt buckle. Flosi took responsibility for the misstep, explaining in his post that he had changed uniforms several times that day.
“I was in multiple uniform combinations this day and I jumped at a chance to recognize a young Airman who was volunteering to help with security on the flightline out at Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford (that’s why he’s wearing his hat on the flightline),” Flosi wrote.
“I’ll do better as I know… STANDARDS MATTER!!” he added.
The Air Force has been tightening its dress and appearance standards since January, when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced that the service would hold more formations for uniform inspections and would review policies and standards that look at “waivers and the exceptions.”
Shortly afterward, the Air Force announced that both airmen and Space Force guardians with medical profiles for shaving would have to be medically evaluated to renew their waivers.
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The move, which does not apply to religious accommodation shaving waivers, reversed a 2020 policy, under which airmen and Guardians diagnosed with Pseudofolliculitis Barbae — a painful skin condition made worse by shaving — could receive waivers for five years without having to renew them.
Flosi also announced a series of uniform changes earlier this month, including a ban on false eyelashes and a requirement that all combat-style boots must be at least 8 inches tall, a rule that would sideline a wide range of popular, shorter boots.
Troops taking to social media to ‘sharp shoot’ a service’s senior enlisted advisor — the top enlisted member in each military branch — for uniform errors or other gaffes is something of an unofficial tradition.
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer, who is no longer on social media, received online heckling for wearing Chelsea boots — which rank-and-file soldiers were not authorized to wear — at a major conference last year.
Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz recently apologized for a since-deleted Instagram post, in which he used a picture of a soldier wearing all his medals as an example of someone not following the uniform standards. The man in the picture was Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II.
