Not too long ago, notorious DUI hire* “Whiskey Pete” Kegsbreath addressed a bunch of military leaders. While I could spend a few posts on all the incompetence, stupidity, and arrogance displayed in all of this, I wanted to talk instead about a line in the speech that I think I have some insider knowledge about.
*DUI Hire: Drunk, unqualified, and incompetent. This appears to be the primary qualification for working in the Trump Regime, second only to “loyal to Trump rather than the Constitution, rule of law, or any ethical value.”
The line in question is one where Kegsbreath says that he will eliminate beards among soldiers. There has been a lot of speculation about the reasons for this. Is he trying to keep African Americans, Sikhs, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and so on, from serving? Maybe.
But the specific use of the term “beardo” caught my eye, because I was once part of another organization that took serious issues with beards - and that term was thrown about a bit.
Per the Oxford English Dictionary, the term originated in the 1930s, at a time when facial hair was transitioning from the big (and often unusual) beards of the 19th Century, to an era of moustaches. (From Hitler to Clark Gable…) At the time, it was just slang for “man with a beard.”
The term “weirdo” itself didn’t arrive until the 1950s. Humans being what they are, the two were eventually combined, which is how I heard it as a kid and thereafter. The 1980s were again an era of mustaches, with subgenres such as “law enforcement,” “pastor,” and “gay guy.” Beards were out, and those who wore them, “beardos.”
That said, in the 1990s, things shifted again. Your basic white guy grew a circle beard.
The 1990s were when my birth family joined Bill Gothard’s cult. You could look like anything you wanted to come to the seminars, but if you actually applied to join the organization, you had to submit a photograph of the family. And, if someone had facial hair, you had to give a damn good explanation for why.
Because beards were almost entirely forbidden.
Does this seem a bit, well, weird?
It did to me at the time, because beards were coming back in for right wing religious guys - you know, masculinity and all. In addition, lots of the guys in this subculture did Civil War reenactments, and have you seen the beards from that conflict? Seriously.
As it turns out, Bill Gothard, like James Dobson and a bunch of other old white males from that era, associated facial hair with….the 1960s. Hippies. Only hippies had beards and moustaches. Good people shaved their faces.
Gothard, Dobson, and the rest literally made their careers fearmongering about hippies. And specifically, those hippies who protested the Vietnam War.
Facial hair meant you were a hippie which meant you were against the war which meant you were an evil rebel which meant shave your goddamn faces if you want to be taken seriously.
I’m pretty sure Kegsbreath is coming from the same place.
Back when we should have won the Vietnam war, but for those dirty beardo hippies, the military required shaving and “high and tight.” Back before those same hippies protested Jim Crow and brought us all this Diversity, Equity and Inclusion woke stuff.
The irony here is that facial hair actually has a strong association with military service. And not just in the 19th Century.
You may have noticed that the Amish and other conservative Mennonite groups have a distinctive facial hair pattern. Specifically, the men wear trim beards, but no moustache? Ever wondered what that is?
My ancestors were Mennonite, although the family became more mainstream Evangelical after emigrating to the US in the 1880s and 90s. At that time, as the family photos show, the beards mostly disappeared, particularly on my mom’s side. (My grandpa had a Colonel Sanders look most of the time I knew him, and one of his brothers had a trim beard.)
The reason for the beard but no moustache is that for centuries in Europe, the big ‘stache was a signifier of military command. Particularly in Germany.
Mennonites are pacifists. They do not serve in the military. Which is why my ancestors on both sides were hounded out of Germany, first to Russia, then to the United States.
The beard without the moustache is a deliberate social protest, a signifier that pacifism extends to the eschewing of the military “look.”
Also a bit bizarre in the case of Kegsbreath is that his pastor-hero Doug Wilson has a big beard, which he uses as a signifier of his great masculinity (as well as a place to store the odors of his two other man-extenders, whiskey and cigars.)
This is why I think Kegsbreath is really doing the “no dirty hippies in the military” thing.
There is an interesting post-script to this in my own life.
I’m a short guy. I used to be pretty skinny (sigh), and when I was a young man, I looked really young. (For a couple decades, I kept getting asked if I was old enough to be a lawyer.) I intentionally kept my first drivers license just for the photo.
This came to a head when I was 20. I was already in law school, and played my violin in a band with some middle-aged female friends, who did the church circuit locally. (They were quite good - tight vocals, original songs)
After one gig, a little old lady came up and asked me if I was age 12.
[Insert existential scream]
No, I explained, I was 20.
And then I went home and started to grow my beard out.
I have explained elsewhere that the law school I “attended”** was affiliated with Gothard’s cult. I was actually in the inaugural class, which was…interesting.
**Attended: that might be a strong word for “went to three conferences and my graduation but was otherwise mostly on my own.”
Gothard himself showed up for our graduation, and gave a commencement address that was the most narcissistic blither I had ever heard up to that time.***
***Trump is even better than Gothard at making everything about himself and rattling on endlessly in his narcissism.
It was literally all about himself, and how he expected us all to use our degree to help him build his organization. Even my parents, who wouldn’t leave the cult for a few years, commented on how terrible it was.
It wasn’t until many years later that I heard from a friend who worked in the organization at the time (and like me despises Gothard and everything he taught), that my beard was a great irritation to Gothard, and that he complained about it for weeks afterward.
I feel quite proud of that. My one visible source of rebellion against the cult got in the craw of the cult leader.
So anyway, those are my thoughts on Kegsbreath, Gothard, and facial hair.
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