The Standard

I thought that I had already written all the military haircut stories that I had in me but after seeing online that the US Naval Academy has brought back chin length induction haircuts for women it sparked a little something inside me. I’ve included a link to an article below but search ‘plebe chop’ on Tiktok or Insta and you can also find plenty of vids/posts about it. 

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/naval-academy-female-haircuts/

Also included before inspo pic below

https://pin.it/5xR8m27NB

Enjoy!

 

I’m thirty-eight years old and a senior officer in the United States Expeditionary Corps.

People often assume I joined because of family. That’s not wrong. My father served in the Corps for most of his life. My two older brothers followed him in. When I was ten years old, the USEC accepted its first batch of female recruits.

I remember that being the moment joining the Corps stopped being an abstract idea and became something that could eventually happen to me. In my family, military service was normal. There was always someone deployed, returning home, or preparing to leave again. As the youngest child and the only girl, I think everyone assumed I would eventually follow the same path.

There was one problem however. At the time, all female recruits were required to receive an induction haircut upon arrival at training. The official term was a brush cut. It was a severe crop, clipped to less than an inch all over. I remember seeing photographs of newly enlisted women in the newspaper when I was younger, rows of them with identical haircuts as they began training.

I had always been blessed with long, thick curls. My mother had spent years teaching me how to care for them, and she made it very clear that I did not have to join the Corps if I didn’t want to. She thought the haircut requirement was unnecessarily harsh and unfair to women. My father understood her point of view, even if he never openly discouraged me from joining. My brothers, on the other hand, saw it as part of the process. To them, everyone gave something up when they enlisted.

As a teenager, the thought of willingly parting with my hair seemed ridiculous. By high school, my dark curls fell down to the middle of my back in large ringlets, and I was far more interested in the Air Force, which had no such induction requirement. Then, during my junior year of high school, the USEC changed its policy. Women were no longer automatically required to receive the induction cut, provided their hair was long enough to be secured in a neat regulation bun throughout training. The caveat was that recruits unable to achieve or maintain that standard would still be required to receive the brush cut. Suddenly, my best excuse for not joining the Corps had disappeared. 

I spent most of my senior year trying to convince myself that I still had a decision to make. On paper, I had options. My grades were excellent, I had done well on every standardized test that mattered, and I had always been athletic. I could have gone straight to university. I could have pursued an officer commissioning route through another branch. I could have joined the Air Force, which had appealed to me for years.

But every time I seriously considered doing something else, I kept coming back to the same question: if I knew I was capable of earning a place in the USEC, could I live with never trying?

The Corps represented the highest standard of military service in the country. It was notoriously difficult to get into, physically demanding, academically challenging, and uncompromising in its expectations. People failed out every year. Plenty of qualified applicants never even made it through selection.

And somehow, three members of my family had done it. My father had built his entire career there. My brothers had followed him. Growing up, I had always viewed their service with admiration, but as graduation approached, I began to understand what an extraordinary achievement it actually was.

I was competitive by nature. I had always pushed myself academically, athletically, and in everything I committed to. The idea of serving my country appealed to me, but so did the challenge itself. If this was the most demanding path available, I wanted to know whether I was capable of meeting that standard. More than anything, I knew I would struggle to forgive myself if I never found out.

By Christmas of my senior year, after months of weighing every reason to go against every reason not to, I told my family that I was going to apply to the USEC. My mother looked worried, though not surprised. My father simply nodded. One of my brothers congratulated me immediately. The other asked if I was sure. For the first time, I was. 

In April, a large envelope bearing the USEC crest arrived in our mailbox. I had been accepted to begin the induction process that summer.

–

This story is from that summer. It’s 2006, I’m 18 and I’m standing outside the induction center for the first time. The main structure is a 4 story brick building, with a variety of smaller buildings spread out across the grounds. We won’t be spending long here, this afternoon we have a 3 hour drive to the Emerson Daily Military Base. It’s there that we will complete the grueling 12 week basic training. Roughly a third of the class won’t make it through. 

At 6am sharp we are instructed to form a line. The men use the main entrance, there are well over 200 of them. For us women we use a side entrance, our class is 38 strong. The line was silent as we slowly shuffled forwards. In front of me was a girl with frizzy blonde hair. I could feel my heavy ponytail against my back. It was a comforting sensation. I had it trimmed a few weeks earlier, as a recommendation of my father, but the most I could part with was the tiniest half inch of dead ends. He raised his eyebrows when I returned home. As I stood in line at the corp I registered I must have the nicest hair in the whole cohort. It formed perfect ringlets, a rich dark brown in colour and reached to my bra strap.

The next few hours were tedious. Our identities were verified, finger prints registered and measurements taken. We were given grey t-shirts and camo trousers and our civilian clothing was taken away. I surrendered the hairband holding my ponytail, letting the curls drape down my front. I inspected the juicy curls. Healthy as ever. After a quick medical examination we finally had some sort of break. I had my first conversation with a fellow recruit. She was the blonde girl that had been in front of me before. Her name was Heather, from Delaware, and still had braces on. Her somewhat gangly physique made me worried for her. 

“Keeping your hair long?” She asked, motioning to my hair. 

“Yep.” I nodded quickly. “Been practicing putting it up into a bun for the last 3 months.” 

It was true. There was no world in which I wouldn’t be able to put my hair into a perfect bun on request. I had my mom time me, 3.6 seconds was my best effort. I had practiced while running, while hanging upside down from the edge of my bed and even with 1 hand. My hair meant a whole lot to me. This was the mid 2000s, the whole natural hair movement hadn’t really taken off yet and having curls of my length and health was a rarity. And I planned on keeping them. 

Again we were instructed to form a line. It was time for the hair inspection. It wasn’t clear how this inspection would take place. It was only the 2nd year it would be taking place and there didn’t seem to be much readily available information on what to expect. Slowly we shuffled into a corridor. For those who already knew their hair was too short for a bun or simply wanted the dreaded brush cut, they would continue down the corridor to the barbers. The rest lined up for a different room. I watched as a few recruits made their way down the corridor. I could hear the faintest of droning noises from the end of the hall. 

I finally entered the room and took in my surroundings. At the far end of the room were two simple tables set up side by side. Each had a female staff member standing behind it. One was white, with her hair pulled back tightly and her posture rigid. The other was black, slightly taller, her expression unreadable, arms folded as she watched the line approach.

Without thinking too much about it, I found myself hoping to end up in the black woman’s line. It wasn’t something I could explain logically. Maybe it was comfort, maybe it was assumption. Maybe I just wanted someone who would understand the kind of hair I had and what it meant to me. When the line shuffled forward, I saw the placement markers on the floor. I was directed to the right. Relief hit me before I even reached the table.

I watched in surprise as Heather quickly walked past us. Her frizzy shoulder length hair was all over the place. Her eyes were glassy. Not crying, but close. She didn’t look back.

My stomach tightened. I told myself this was a test. Something I could pass if I did exactly what I had practiced. Suddenly I was next. I stepped forward and stopped in front of the table.

The name tag read: L. Carter.

Up close, I couldn’t tell if Staff Sergeant Carter looked friendly. Her hair was relaxed and in a pixie style. She looked at me briefly, then at my hair. 

“Place your hair in a bun,” she said, holding out an elastic.

It was thinner than what I was used to, almost fragile-looking. Without thinking, I reached up and unclipped a thicker band I still had on my wrist. It was automatic more than intentional. I didn’t even realise I still had it. 

For a split second, Carter’s expression changed.

“Why do you still have civilian items?” she said flatly. “They were supposed to be handed in.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I forgot.”

It was the first mistake I had made since arriving. I felt foolish. My heart started pounding as I started gathering my hair, pulling it back into place. Thick curls slid through my fingers, heavier than they felt at home, suddenly feeling less familiar. 

Carter watched closely as I wrestled my hair into a bun. I exhaled shakily. Then I felt a horrible sensation. This slow, unwinding sensation. I was standing frozen at attention as my bun unraveled behind me. 

“This sort of hair isn’t going to be appropriate for training.” She said calmly. 

I frantically winded my hair back up, tighter than before. 

To my relief Carter seemed to inspect it again. I was getting a second chance. 

“Just in terms of how long it is,” Carter began as she slowly tilted her head. “And how much there is, I’m very much going to recommend that you have this cut.” 

I struggled to find my voice. 

“I think I can manage.” I croaked back. 

“You think?” She crossed her arms. “You think you know better than my judgement?”

“No Ma’am.” I cursed inside. Now I’d questioned her authority. “I just -”

“I was in your exact situation 8 years ago.” She interrupted me. “I know what I’m talking about.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. We were in what felt like a standoff. I hung to the fact she clearly used the word ‘recommend’. I was at this point not taking her recommendation, but I wasn’t violating any rules. 

Snap! 

Suddenly my hair was sprawling around my shoulders. I couldn’t hide my shock. I looked to the floor and saw the hair band, it had broken. I looked back at Sergeant Carter. She smiled. 

“My recommendation is now an order.”  

“Ma’am, I…” 

I remembered hot tears forming as I instinctively ran my fingers over my hair, smoothing it over my left shoulder. 

“This is how it works recruit. I was even lenient enough to give you a second chance.” 

I could feel my whole world crashing around me. USEC was over. My parents would need to make the 5 hour journey back here to pick me up. I had missed deadlines for any other program starting this year. I racked my mind as to what I could do. 

“Yes ma’am.” I nodded and turned around, quickly leaving the room before the others could see the tears welling in my eyes. 

A staff member in the hallway directed me down the corridor. I opened my mouth. I needed to tell him I was leaving all together. I needed to go back where I came in from. 

“Just to the end of this hall.” He repeated. He was young, probably only a few years older than me. I felt embarrassed as I tried to find the words. 

I need to leave this whole program! I quit!    

Instead I nodded and slowly walked down the hallway. I was simply stalling. I could tell the barbers at the end of the hall were busy by the industrial whirring of the clippers and the hum of voices. The entrance way was only another 20 or so feet away. As I got closer I could begin to peer inside. 

The room was much larger than I had expected. Two long rows of barber chairs stretched down either side of the room, ten on each wall. All the chairs faced away from the mirrors and they were oversized and upholstered in worn red leather. For a brief moment, they reminded me of the small barbershop my father used to take my brothers to when they were younger. 

Men were filing in steadily from the far end of the room, directed toward whichever chair became available. I had entered through a side doorway near the opposite end. The atmosphere here felt strangely different from the rest of the induction center. There was less shouting. The steady drone of clippers filled the room instead with the barbers casually chatting between them.

A female staff member stood just beyond the doorway.

“Just wait here one moment,” she said.

I stopped obediently. It was only then did I realise I had actually entered the room. A knot formed in my stomach. I needed to tell her I wasn’t going to be continuing. 

I looked at the nearest chair to me and made direct eye-contact with the recruit sitting there. His body was covered in a massive crimson cape, his hair reduced to a fuzzy stubble. He looked miserable. The barber had a hand directly on his head as he worked the clippers across his scalp. Small clippings of hair were plastered to the recruits face. I averted my gaze and looked at the floor. Surrounding the chair was a mess of wiry blonde hair. 

I had to double take. It was Heather! The person I was looking at was Heather. I wanted to throw up. She was unrecognizable.    

“Ma’am.” I tried getting the attention of the staff member. 

She looked over at me. At this moment I felt I needed to try one last time. 

“The hairband I was given…” I composed my thoughts. “Is there any chance I can show you?” 

She looked at me and I could sense the pity she felt. 

“It broke but I’ve done it 1000 times before and it never happened. Is there any way I can show someone here?” 

“That’s not something we do.” She stated simply. “At the inspection you were sent here?” 

“Yeah, but…” I could feel tears forming again. “Can I please show someone here?”

She looked me up and down. Her eyes took in my mass of curls streaming down the front of my top. 

“One moment.” She briskly walked away. 

I watched as Heather’s cape was whisked off her. She rubbed the remnants of her hair and slowly lifted herself from the chair. My eyes fixed on the hair sprawled around the base of the chair. An assistant carrying an enormous broom moved methodically down the line of barbers, sweeping together the remnants of each recruit’s haircut. As he passed Heather’s station, her pale blonde curls disappeared into the growing collection.

I followed the movement of the broom to the far end of the room. There, gathered against one wall, was a huge pile of hair from the day’s work. Dark hair. Blonde hair. Straight hair. Curly hair. All mixed together into an unrecognisable heap. I shuddered. I couldn’t let that be the fate of my hair. 

A few moments later, the staff member returned. Walking beside her was another woman in uniform. She was older than most of the staff I had seen that day, probably in her forties and she had an air of authority about her that made me immediately stand straighter.

“This is Recruit Lawson?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the staff member replied.

The woman looked directly at me.

“I’m Master Sergeant Reynolds,” she said. “I understand there was an issue during your grooming inspection.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “The hairband I was given broke. I know I failed the inspection, but I’ve practiced this for months. I can meet the standard.”

“You were instructed to report here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you’re asking for another opportunity to demonstrate compliance?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She studied me for a moment. Her gaze dropped briefly to the thick curls hanging down the front of my uniform shirt.

“You understand that the standard exists for a reason?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You understand that if you cannot maintain your hair within regulations during training, you will receive the induction cut?”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“Then why should I make an exception?”

The question caught me off guard. Because I loved my hair wasn’t going to be an acceptable answer. 

“I’ve prepared for this, ma’am,” I said finally. “I know the standard. I know I can meet it. The band broke, and I reacted poorly. I’m asking for the chance to show you that I can do what was required.”

Master Sergeant Reynolds remained silent for several seconds. Beside her, the female staff member shifted slightly. Finally, Reynolds spoke.

“You understand that if I allow this, and you fail again, there won’t be another discussion.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She held my gaze.

“This isn’t about whether you have nice hair, Recruit Lawson. It isn’t about whether you’ve had it your entire life. The Corps doesn’t make decisions based on sentiment.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

“It’s about standards. If you can meet them, fine. If you can’t, the issue will be corrected.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She extended a hand toward the staff member, who passed her another regulation hairband.

“You have one opportunity,” Reynolds said, handing it to me. “Use only the items issued to you. Demonstrate that you can secure your hair in accordance with regulations.”

My heart was thumping as I accepted the elastic.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Recruit,” she replied evenly. “Show me.”

My hands still felt unsteady as I gathered my hair together. I forced myself to slow down. I had done this hundreds of times. Before school. Before track meets. In front of the bathroom mirror while my mother timed me. There was no reason this should be different.

I twisted the heavy mass of curls into place and wrapped the issued elastic around it once. Twice. A third time. The bun held. I resisted the urge to touch it again.

“Finished, ma’am,” I said quietly.

Master Sergeant Reynolds stepped forward.

“Turn.”

I rotated slowly as she inspected it from every angle. I could feel her eyes tracing the edges of the bun, looking for loose strands or signs that it wouldn’t hold. She paused behind me for what felt like an eternity before moving back into my line of sight.

“It’s secure,” she said simply.

Reynolds glanced down at the clipboard in her hand before looking back at me.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, Recruit Lawson.”

Relief washed over me so suddenly that my knees almost felt weak. I fought to keep my expression neutral. The corners of my mouth threatened to turn upward, but I managed to suppress them into what I hoped was an appropriately professional expression.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.

Reynolds held my gaze for another moment.

“Understand something,” she said. “This is not a free pass. If you cannot maintain this standard during training, the issue will be corrected. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

I offered one final, “Thank you, ma’am,” before following the staff member away from the barber chairs. Only when the doors to the barbershop closed behind me did I allow myself to breathe properly again. I had made it.

–

Basic training began the next day. The days quickly settled into a routine that was both predictable and exhausting. Wake-up came long before sunrise, accompanied by the drill sergeants making it very clear that we weren’t moving quickly enough. Then came physical training: long runs around the base, endless sets of push-ups, obstacle courses, and carrying heavy packs over long distances.

It was difficult but years of track and field had given me a strong foundation, and I had arrived in excellent shape. The academic portions of training came naturally to me, and I found comfort in the structure of military life. Work hard. Follow instructions. Push through discomfort. One day after another.

The thirty-eight women from my induction class shared a large dormitory lined with metal bunk beds. By the end of the first few days, friendships had begun to form. 

The drill sergeants were strict, but they were fair. They expected excellence because the Corps demanded it. When someone made a mistake, they corrected it and moved on. There was no room for excuses, but there was also no sense that they wanted us to fail.

For the first time since arriving at the induction centre, I allowed myself to think that maybe I truly belonged here. There was only one aspect of training that remained difficult. My hair.

The practical realities of basic training hadn’t occurred to me while practicing buns in the comfort of my bedroom at home. There was barely enough time to shower, let alone properly detangle and care for thick curls that reached almost the middle of my back. Every morning became a race against the clock. I learned to work quickly, fingers moving almost automatically as I pulled my hair into the regulation bun. Somehow, despite the sweat, exhaustion, and constant movement, I managed to keep it within standards.

I often thought back to induction day and how fortunate I had been to get past the barber shop. I had plenty of daily reminders surrounding me. There were about half a dozen girls with the short brush cut. It was a truly brutal cut. Their hair didn’t show any movement or texture, it simply protruded from their heads in a uniform manner, hugging the shape of their heads. 

I found myself looking at Heather and trying to connect the person in front of me with the girl I had met on induction morning. I remembered her standing ahead of me in line, nervously pushing messy blonde hair out of her face. Now there was nothing to push away.    

“You know I saw you, right?” Heather said one evening.

I looked up from my bunk.

“Saw me?”

“At the barbers.”

I immediately felt uncomfortable. Watching Heather in that moment had felt wrong somehow. It was such a personal, vulnerable thing to witness, and at the time we were still complete strangers. 

“Oh.”

Heather smiled slightly.

“You looked terrified.”

“I probably was.”

“No, seriously,” she said. “I thought you were going to pass out.”

I laughed. Heather didn’t. 

“And somehow you managed to make it out with your hair.” I saw her eyes flicker to my mane of curls streaming down my chest. 

“I got lucky. Someone gave me another chance to prove I could meet the standard.”

“Very lucky.” She nodded slowly.  

For a moment neither of us said anything. I looked back down at my hands. I knew I probably should have left the conversation there, but there was a question that had been sitting in the back of my mind since induction day. I’m still not entirely sure why I asked it. Part of me didn’t want to know. Even thinking about sitting in that chair, feeling that cape being fastened around my neck and waiting for the clippers to start, made my stomach tighten. But another part of me needed to know.

Maybe because I had come so close. Maybe because Heather had experienced the exact thing I had spent months fearing. She had lived through the version of my first day that I had narrowly avoided.

“What was it like?”

Heather looked at me.

“The haircut?”

“Yeah.”

“Horrible,” she said finally.

The bluntness of the answer caught me off guard.

“Horrible?”

Heather nodded.

“I mean, I’m fine now. But yeah. Sitting there? That was pretty hard. Especially because I wasn’t expecting it”

I felt nauseous trying to imagine how she felt in that moment. 

“Literally I was marched into that room,” She took a deep breath. “And suddenly I’m in the chair. And the barber is like ‘Okay Miss, so it’s a 6 on top and 4 on the sides’. I have no idea what that means obviously, I guess now I do.” She pointed at her cropped hair. 

“And suddenly I can just feel my hair falling. It was like when you have your hair up in a bun and it let it out, right? But then it just drops off your head completely. And then like 30 seconds later I have no hair at all. I think that is when you walked in.” 

Afterwards, part of me wished I had never asked. Instead of answering my curiosity, it had only given my imagination more details to work with. 

But there was another feeling there too. One I felt guilty admitting. Relief.

The more Heather described what had happened, the more impossible it seemed that I had been so close to the exact same outcome. A slightly different decision from Master Sergeant Reynolds, a slightly different conversation, and I would have been sitting across from Heather looking exactly the same. There was something selfish about using someone else’s worst moment as proof of my own good fortune, but that was the truth. Every time I looked at her, I was reminded how close I had come.

As the end of the first week approached, I started to relax. Maybe induction had been the hardest part after all. That illusion disappeared on Friday evening.

I was standing in line at the mess hall, tray in hand. The room buzzed with hundreds of conversations, punctuated by the occasional barked instruction from the staff.

Then I saw her. Staff Sergeant Carter. She was standing near one of the exits speaking with another instructor, her expression exactly as I remembered it from the induction centre. I felt my stomach drop. Until that moment, I had assumed I would never see her again. Suddenly, I wasn’t very hungry anymore.

The next day started with a 10 mile run. It was grueling but I managed to remain at the front of the pack. As we finally reached the finish my relief to be done was wiped once I saw Sergeant Carter alongside the drill sergeants. She stood with her arms crossed, her eyes drilling into me. 

I gulped down water as she motioned for me to walk towards her. My heart was pounding more than it had during my run as I walked towards her. Carter didn’t say anything at first. She just looked at me for a moment longer than was comfortable, her eyes moving from my face down to the top of my head as I slowed to a stop in front of her.

I was still breathing heavily from the run. Sweat had started to cool on my neck, and I could feel the bun at the back of my head already shifting slightly out of place, loosened by the miles.

When she finally spoke, her voice was calm.

“I’m not happy with what I’m seeing.”

I hesitated. “Ma’am?”

“That,” she said, “is not a regulation bun.”

“I kept it secured for the entire run, ma’am,” I said quickly. “It only came loose just now, I can fix it—”

“Stop.”

My mouth closed.

Carter’s gaze stayed fixed on my hair. “You’re not listening. I’m not talking about whether it survived the run. I’m talking about what it looks like now that the run is finished.”

I felt sick.

“Last week I told you this would need to be cut. I’m not sure how you got out of that, but I’m not allowing it.”

I had to stifle a sob. 

“Ma’am, I can keep it within regulation. I have been keeping it within regulation.”

“You’ve been managing it,” she corrected. “There’s a difference, and you’re proving it right now.”

Carter exhaled slowly, almost as if she was deciding how much of this to explain, and then she did.

“When I came into this Corps,” she said, “there was no discretion. No alternative standards. No allowances for whether you thought you could ‘make it work.’ You arrived, and it was done. Hair gone.”

She looked at me directly then, finally meeting my eyes.

“You are trying to preserve something that doesn’t survive this environment. Not consistently. Not reliably. And if it can’t survive, it becomes a liability. Not just for you, but for everyone around you.”

I started to speak again, but she cut me off before I could even get a word out.

“This isn’t about preference,” she said. “It isn’t about appearance. It’s about whether you are willing to remove variables that will eventually fail under pressure. That is what commitment looks like here.”

Her voice lowered slightly, but it didn’t soften.

“You’re going to the barber tomorrow,” she said. “I will see to that personally.” 

I thought I might fall to the ground upon hearing those words. I tried to hold her gaze, trying to find some angle back into the argument. 

“Otherwise you are out of the program.”

–

I woke up on Sunday wishing more than anything I could go back to sleep. That maybe somehow I would wake up in some alternate universe. A universe where I wasn’t to meet Sergeant Carter at the mess hall at 9, from where she would then escort me to the barbers. 

Sadly no miracle occurred. This was my reality. It was just after 7. Sunday was our only partial day. No physical testing, only classes starting from 11. It was an opportunity to catch up on sleep. Even with my exhaustion I wasn’t able to drift off until the early hours of the morning. My mind was racing. My hair was to be cut off. It was that or my place in the program. Simple. 

I spent the night weighing up my options. Anytime I ran my fingers across my curls I felt the only option was to leave. Carter spoke about sacrifice but I couldn’t give up something like my hair, it was quintessentially me. It was how I was recognised. How I felt beautiful. I had cared and nurtured it my whole life. Surrendering it couldn’t be an option. 

But then I considered actually leaving. The embarrassment. The shame. And I was doing so well! I was acing basic training. At some point before I drifted off I knew I had to stay. Even if that meant parting with my hair. 

I tried pushing all thoughts out of my head as I entered the shower block. Almost everyone was still asleep. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell anyone about what was happening. I couldn’t imagine doing it this morning either. I tried to imagine the reactions when I returned, people might struggle to recognise me. 

It was the first time on base I was able to take a shower longer than 2 minutes. I tried to enjoy the sensation of washing my long hair for the last time, feeling the wet curls against my shoulders and back, but I could only feel remorse knowing it would soon be taken away from me. 

As I walked over to the mess hall, my slightly damp hair wrapped in a bun, I seriously considered running. It was a primal sensation, the purest form of flight or fight I had ever felt in my life. My legs however kept me dutifully walking towards Sergeant Carter. 

She was waiting for me outside the main door of the mess hall.

“Let’s go.” She said simply. 

I had run past the barber a few times. It was a small single story building next to one of the barracks. I knew it was run by a small civilian team and only open Sunday and Monday. For the men they had to maintain their number 0 buzzcut with weekly appointments. It was every 4 weeks for the women. 

I followed Carter as she walked briskly. I thought about how much I hated her. I realized that in my hatred for her lay a small motivation to stay. At least she wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing me quit. 

The barbershop came into my vision as we turned a corner. Looking at the classic pinstriped pole on its wall made me shudder. I considered that I would walk in with my curls and leave without them. That idea was almost impossible to wrap my mind around. 

“After you.” Carter said as we reached the entrance.

I pushed open the door. It was a small space. There were three barber chairs in a straight line, all facing a long mirrored wall that ran the length of the room opposite the entrance. On the wall beside the door, there was a long wooden bench. One recruit sat there already, shoulders hunched forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. I slid onto the bench, Carter took a seat next to me. 

All four barbers were busy. Each chair was occupied by a male recruit in various stages of transformation. The barbers worked leisurely, without the same urgency I had watched at induction. A radio played a talk show softly in the background. Large ceiling fans pushed a slight draft across the room. 

I took in each of the barbers and their stations. They were all middle aged men, most slightly overweight and dressed casually. They didn’t look particularly evil, despite the evil act that one of them would soon be committing. 

Each station was crowded with clippers, combs and guards. The chairs themselves were old-fashioned things upholstered in dark red vinyl, with broad chrome footrests. 

The recruit from the left most chair got up and was replaced by the one sitting next to me. I would be next. I watched as the right most recruit had the finishing touches to his buzz completed. I pressed my eyes closed. He would be done in a matter of seconds. In a matter of minutes my hair would be hitting the checkered floor. 

To my dismay the barber whipped off the cape and the recruit pushed himself up. I tried to calm my nerves. The barber looked at me and smiled. He was a balding white man, I guessed in his early 50s. With the chair swivelled towards me he patted the backrest. 

“Come on over.” 

With difficulty I stood up and made my way towards him. Once I was standing I again felt the urge to bolt. I knew that wasn’t an option and slowly lowered myself onto the chair. He smoothly rotated the chair so I faced the mirror.  

“She’ll be needing the standard female cut.” Carter announced from the bench. 

I watched as the barber raised his eyebrows. 

“Can do.” He nodded as if it was just another day at work for him. I could feel the eyes of the barber one chair over flicker towards me. 

I watched in glum silence as he tore off a strip of paper which he fit snugly around my neck. He took his white cape and with practiced ease swung it over my body. He fastened it around my neck, folded over the paper and straightened out the wrinkles in the cape. The cape was large enough to completely cover the chair. 

He moved behind me and began to free my hair from the bun. I watched in the mirror as Sergeant Carter watched on smugly. My hair came loose and I felt as it tumbled down my back, as heavy as ever. 

“Oh boy.” The barber exclaimed. He looked at me through the mirror with surprise. “Quite the head of hair you’ve got.” 

I pressed my lips into a smile even though I felt like death. I stared at myself in the mirror and tried to control my breathing. My heart was hammering inside my chest so hard it was hurting. 

The barber placed his hands under the mass of hair lifting it before letting it fall against the back of the cape.

“Shame to see it go.” He stated casually. 

He then moved to the counter. I fixed my eyes on the clippers that sat atop the bench, they were red and massive and I could see the words ‘Classic 76’ on them. I watched as he picked them up and dropped my hairband on the counter. He sorted through the loose guards on the counter, finding the one he wanted and clipping it on. 

I felt tears forming. I was desperate not to make a scene. Desperate not to give Carter that satisfaction. 

The barber slowly rotated the chair 90 degrees to the left. I now faced the barber next to me. We briefly made eye contact as he applied finishing touches to the recruit in his chair. For just a second I caught something in his expression. It looked like pity. The kind of look someone gives when they know exactly what’s about to happen and also know there’s nothing they can do to stop it.

“Alright, Miss.” My barber placed his hand atop my head. “Tuck in your chin will you.”

I was desperate to somehow delay what was about to happen. If I could somehow just have another hour with my hair. I should’ve spent more time playing with it this morning, pulling it up into styles that would soon be impossible, but I hadn’t. Doing that would have meant admitting this was actually happening.

I dropped my chin, pressing it towards my chest. I felt strands of my hair fall over my shoulders and into my vision. The barber still had this hand on my head and he pushed it even further forward. 

“And relax your shoulders.” 

I hadn’t realised how hunched up my shoulders were. I untensed them to the best of my ability. Under the cape my hands were still tightly gripping the arm rests. 

The clippers hummed to life and I shakily exhaled a nervous breath. I couldn’t believe I was in this situation. I had been so adamant this wouldn’t be a possibility, that I would navigate USEC with my hair intact. But I had failed. And now I was about to face the repercussions of my failure. 

“Any moles I need to be aware of?”

It took me a few seconds to realise why he would ask such a question. Then it hit me. The clippers were about to be run across my head. That’s how low the cut was about to be. Mole-nicking short. 

I tried to think of an answer and realised I genuinely didn’t know. My hair had always been too thick to notice something like that. Even when washing it, my fingers worked through layers of curls, never against my actual head. My scalp was something I almost never saw, barely something I thought about.

“No sir.” I squeaked back. 

I felt him move my hair aside at the nape of my neck. Then his hand was firmly clasped to the top of my head. 

Suddenly the roaring clippers touched the base of my neck. I suppressed the urge to scream out. Slowly they pushed upwards. Their tone changed slightly as they began chewing through my hair. I shut my eyes tightly. 

In my 18 years of life that exact moment had to have been my worst. The first pass of the clippers, my head tucked tightly to my chest, my shoulders so tensed up they burned and the feeling of my long hair detaching from my scalp and sliding down my cape covered back. 

The clippers had almost reached my crown before they were brought up for air. I could feel the strip that had just been mowed down the back of my head. 

I clenched my teeth as the clippers were again at my neck. Agonisingly slowly they again rose up the back of my head. I could feel my curls being peeled off my head as the clippers chewed upwards. 

My eyes remained shut as he repeated this technique. Left hand holding my head in place, right hand driving the clippers from my nape to my crown. My hair dropping down the back of the chair in heavy sheets. 

At this point in time my brain was struggling to process. Everything felt so unfamiliar. The vibrating machine against my head, the sudden absence of weight, and terrifyingly the breeze I could now feel on the back of my head. 

“Making these clippers earn their keep.” My barber said. 

The comment made me snap my eyes open. I was greeted with the white cape taking up my vision. Straining my eyes forward I noticed the barber I was facing was done with his client and was sitting in his chair, watching with interest. 

“Sure is.” He replied. 

I turned my eyes to the bench. Carter was watching intently. 

“Can’t believe that’s all coming off.” The barber next to me said with obvious disbelief. 

I became aware I was a spectacle. Despite my barber’s nonplussed demeanour I knew underneath he probably couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw my hair. And then learning that he would need to take it all off. I tried to think if he was taken aback by the task that had been sat in front of him. Or if it excited him. With dismay I realised this was surely the dream for any barber. 

The chair was rotated to now face the mirror. My head was guided upwards. I could tell the back of my head was now fuzz, but nothing had changed in my reflection. Curls hung down my front. 

“Not sure she can quite believe it.” My barber replied. To my disgust he was grinning. 

Without needing to move he was now standing at my right side. His left hand again held my head in place as he brought the clippers close to me again. With morbid curiosity I kept my eyes open. 

The clippers were placed just behind my right ear. In an easy motion they scraped up my head. I watched in horror as curls dropped past my shoulders down the side of the cape to the floor. Feeling them fall was dreadful, watching was even worse. Despite that I couldn’t look away. The tresses I watched tumble to the floor were so familiar to me. I could’ve sworn I knew exactly which ringlet it was that had just been removed. 

The barber took in his hand the rest of the hair on my right side. He lifted it out briefly to then set his clippers right in front of my ear. He let go of the hair as he then ran the clippers upwards. 

I could no longer hide my shock. My mouth made an O as I watched long tendrils of curls drop down the front of the cape. I felt the weight of them as they passed over my knees before hitting the floor. With another pass, more long curls dropped over my knees, this time I could feel them collect on the large footrest my boots were resting on. 

Looking in the mirror the fact that half my hair was now gone was undeniable. My right side was cropped short while my left side looked as it had this morning. It was a sight I could barely compute. It was at this point I finally didn’t have the urge to bolt. I just wanted this to be done. 

The barber ran his clippers over my right side a few more times. Small dustings of hair drifted to the cape. 

“Doing great.” He smiled at me through the mirror. I had nothing to muster in reply. 

My ears were folded over as the clippers roared past them. 

“Not something you see every day.” He continued and I wished he would simply shut up. “Quite the change for you.”

I couldn’t help imagining that, years from now, I would still be that recruit with all the curls. The haircut he’d mention to his wife over dinner that evening. The story he’d tell another barber when conversation ran dry. You should’ve seen the amount of hair that came off that girl. I knew it wasn’t fair. He was just doing his job. He wasn’t trying to upset me. To him this would become a memorable day at work. To me, it was eighteen years of my life disappearing onto the floor.

He stopped his clippering for a moment, and again rotated the chair so I now faced to the right of the mirror. He set his hand against my head tilting it slightly. He placed the clippers by my temple. Hair cascaded down the side of the cape as he pushed the clippers up my head. 

My thoughts drifted home. I pictured my mother opening the front door and seeing me like this. She would be horrified. Afterall she had never believed my hair should be cut in the first place. My brothers would be different. They’d laugh. Not because they wanted to hurt me, but because that’s what brothers did. I could already hear the jokes. I tried to imagine my father’s reaction and found I couldn’t. He had always been harder to read. Part of me thought he’d simply nod, as though it were just another part of military life. I hoped that somewhere beneath that reserved expression would be a quiet respect for what I had gone through. 

The clippers were now behind my ear, the sensation of them stripping my hair from my scalp hadn’t become any less terrifying. I stole a quick glance to the mirror on my left and saw only a few tendrils of my long hair remained. With another pass of the clippers they brushed past my shoulders to the floor. The barber now turned me to again face forwards.  

The girl looking back in the mirror was practically a stranger. The sides of my head were a short dark pelt of hair. On top I still had curls, but they weren’t long anymore. Most of their length had already been clipped away as the barber worked over the back and sides of my head. What was left was only a few inches. 

 “Years to grow, seconds to mow.” The barber announced with some semblance of pride in his voice. “Little saying we got ‘round here.”

I felt broken. My mind went back to all the effort I had poured into keeping my hair. The hours spent practising buns. The desperate pleading with Master Sergeant Reynolds. Worst of all was remembering how relieved I had felt walking out of the induction barbershop. The certainty that I had somehow beaten the system and would complete basic training with my curls intact. And here I was. My hair gone. 

The barber switched off the clippers and reached for the counter. He unclipped the guard and replaced it with a larger one before bringing the machine back to life. Resting one hand against the back of my head, he placed the clippers at my forehead and drew them steadily towards my crown. The short curls spilled in the wake of the clippers, several brushing across my nose and lips before dropping onto the cape. 

He placed the clippers at my forehead once again and repeated the movement. I knew the top had been left slightly longer than the sides, but I could barely tell the difference. With a third pass, the last of my curls disappeared. What remained was a close crop of dark hair, so short there wasn’t the slightest hint of a wave, let alone a curl. It would be months before my hair was long enough to form even a single curl. 

The barber placed his hand on my now cropped head. It was an oddly intimate sensation. His hand guided my head wherever he wanted it, tipping my chin, turning me slightly, exposing another part of my scalp. It was strangely demeaning how little control I had over my own movements. Fine clippings of dark hair dusted the cape and clung to my cheeks and eyelashes. 

I looked back at Sergeant Carter. She watched in complete silence, her face offering nothing. No satisfaction. No regret. No sympathy. To her, this wasn’t personal. It wasn’t about my curls or everything they had meant to me. It was simply a recruit being corrected until she met the standard.

The steady hum of the clippers finally stopped. The barber reached across to the counter and set them down before picking up a much smaller pair of trimmers. Their buzz was sharper, higher pitched.

“Chin down again for me.”

I obeyed without thinking. His hand settled against the top of my head once more, tilting it forward until I was staring at the cape draped across my lap. The little trimmers tickled against the base of my neck as he carefully cleaned the edge of the cut. He slowly swivelled the chair as he worked around my head, the trimmers tracing neatly behind one ear before moving to the other.

When they reached my right temple, I flinched. He was trimming my sideburn. The thought stopped me cold. Sideburns. I had sideburns. Until that morning I’d never even considered that word could apply to me. Sideburns were something my brothers had shaved in the bathroom mirror. Something my father occasionally neatened before work. Yet here I was, sitting perfectly still while a barber carefully squared off my own. 

A few moments later the buzzing stopped. The barber set the trimmers back on the counter.

“All done.” He announced, spinning me back to face the mirror. 

I stared at my reflection, trying to accept that this was me now. It felt strangely dreamlike, as though I were looking at someone else. With one practiced movement, he unclipped the cape from around my neck and swung it off me. 

Tentatively, I turned my head from side to side. For my whole life movement had been followed by the gentle resistance of heavy curls. Now there was nothing. My head felt impossibly light. The absence was so complete that the movement itself felt unfamiliar. Without the mass of curls that had framed my face my entire life, the girl looking back at me felt like a stranger.

The barber rested his hands on the armrests and gently swivelled the chair until I was facing Sergeant Carter once more.

She studied me for a few seconds, her eyes taking in the freshly clipped sides, the slightly longer top, the clean neckline.

Finally, she gave a single approving nod.

“There,” she said evenly. “You’ll adjust.”

I wanted to say something. Anything. Tell her she was wrong. Tell her she had no idea what she’d taken from me. Nothing came.

I simply stared back before giving the faintest nod. Slowly, almost cautiously, I pushed myself out of the chair. As I stood, my eyes drifted downward. I froze. My hair.

It lay scattered across the chequered floor, the long dark curls had formed a few massive piles by the base of the chair. Loose tendrils and smaller curls were scattered everywhere. It was a mess, a true abundance of hair covering the floor.

I couldn’t look away. I knew those curls. Every one of them felt unmistakably mine. For eighteen years they had belonged to me. I’d washed them, brushed them, fought with them, tied them back, complained about how long they took to dry. I could almost convince myself I recognised individual ringlets amongst the destruction. Seeing them lying there, separated from me, felt deeply wrong. On my head it had always felt manageable. On the floor it looked excessive. Like an impossible amount of hair.

The barber followed my gaze.

“Lovely hair,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry… it’ll grow back.”

I looked at him. I knew he meant to comfort me but the comment stung. I knew it would grow back, but this would take years. Half a decade even. 

Sergeant Carter turned towards the door.

“We’re done.”

I looked back as we walked out I watched the barber pick up a wide broom. With long, practiced strokes he swept the heaps of dark curls together before pushing them towards the corner of the room. 

I paused for only a second. It felt ridiculous, but I found myself committing the image to memory. Goodbye hair. Then I turned and walked out of the barber shop.

The afternoon sun hit my scalp immediately. I instinctively reached up towards my head before stopping halfway. My fingers hovered uncertainly before resting against the short brush of hair that was now all that remained. I couldn’t believe it had happened. I couldn’t believe this hair I was running my hands over was all that I had left.

We walked across the parade ground in silence. After a minute, Sergeant Carter spoke.

“I know that was tough.”

I looked across at her.

“You handled yourself well.”

For the first time since meeting her, there was something that almost resembled warmth in her voice.

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

She nodded once.

“Now put that behind you.”

–

Nearly twenty years have passed since that day, and I still think about it more often than I’d care to admit.

At eighteen I was convinced Sergeant Carter had singled me out simply to be cruel. Age has softened that view. I don’t believe she enjoyed having my hair cut. I think she saw a recruit whose commitment still depended on a condition. She wanted to remove that condition before training truly began.

I can admit she was right about one thing. Basic training became considerably easier without the almost waist-length curls to wash, dry and force into a regulation bun every morning. I never again found myself racing the clock with handfuls of hairpins clenched between my teeth.

That didn’t mean I stopped missing my hair. What took far longer than I expected was adjusting to the person looking back at me in the mirror. Practicality aside, I simply didn’t feel like myself anymore. Every morning, for weeks, I would catch my reflection for a split second and be surprised by the woman staring back. I had spent eighteen years seeing one version of myself, and overnight she had disappeared.

The day I finished basic training I began growing it again. It eventually reached my shoulders, but never much further. The ends would become dry and brittle long before it approached the length I’d worn at eighteen, and along the way I accepted that the length I once had belonged to a different chapter of my life.

I stayed in the Corps. Long enough for basic training to become a distant memory. Long enough to lead recruits of my own. Long enough to build a career I remain immensely proud of. Every now and then someone finds an old photograph of me before the haircut. The reaction is almost always the same.

“I can’t believe you cut all that off.”

Neither can I. But whenever I look at those photographs, I don’t just see my hair. I see something I gave up to be where I am today.