When Abraham Lopez showed up for boot camp on July 15, the sprawling crop of lettuce atop his head was so big that his hair obscured most of his face, according to a picture posted online by Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.
But, as the series of pictures of Lopez chronicle, his volcanic eruption of a mane was no obstacle for the barbers at the recruit depot, who are combat seasoned in the war against flowing locks. But all male Marine recruits have their head shaved at the start of boot camp and Lopez was quickly shorn, as his once bountiful strands fell victim to the clippers of freedom.
Lopez is not the first person to begin his Marine Corps career by losing legendary hair. In 2018, the Marines posted a picture of another recruit at San Diego who sported a glorious mullet along with the caption, “Business in the Front, Party in the Back.”
When the Marine, whom Task & Purpose has dubbed “Pvt. Mullet,” graduated from recruit training, his uncle said that his drill instructors had not treated him any worse than his fellow recruits.
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After the picture of Pvt. Mullet went viral, he briefly became something of a celebrity within the Marine Corps. One Marine whom he didn’t know drove for 45 minutes to San Diego to see him graduate.
Whether Lopez’s Sideshow Bob-top lives in similar fame, his story is yet more proof how obsessed the Marine Corps is with hair.
Haircuts are such an important part of Corps culture that former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller was worried that the need to find recruits with cyber warfare skills might affect recruiting standards.
According to the commander at the time of Marine Forces Cyber Command, then-Brig. Gen. Loretta Reynolds,Neller asked her, “Do I have to start letting guys with purple hair and earrings in?”
When Neller announced in 2019 that the Marine Corps was creating a cyber auxiliary, he made it very clear that grooming regulations would not be relaxed for cyber warriors.
“If anybody wants to join, you can sign up,” Neller said. “You can have purple hair, too, but no EGA [Eagle, Globe, and Anchor].”
Hairstyles once again became an issue during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In April 2020, a video shared on social media showed Marines standing in line outside a barber shop in Camp Pendleton, California. The Marines were not standing six feet apart, nor were they wearing masks.
When asked if it was mission essential for Marines to get haircuts during the pandemic, then-Chairman of the Joints of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said yes and cited the famous Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.
“I think Marines should get haircuts, from a personal standpoint,” Milley said at an April 14, 2020 Pentagon news conference. “As the son of a Navy corpsman who hit the beach at Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division, it took extraordinary discipline to conquer that island with 7,000 Marines killed in 19 and 20 days and put a flag on Suribachi. That Marine victory was the result of incredible discipline of America’s 911 force and the expeditionary force. It may seem superficial to some, but getting a haircut is part of that discipline.”
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