It's ok for people who are based on an active base but what about in the reserve component? I know as a guardsman this rule would have been pretty hard to follow. My base had a chow hall (sorry DFAC) that was open maybe every other drill weekend and we only recently got a very small mini-bx. So unless we packed our lunch every day, we had to run off base for food. When I was a crew chief, I would launch my jet, run off base and grab some food and rush back to catch my jet. Changing uniform would not have been possible.

I agree with Scrap on this one, there should be not problem with wearing your uniform off base. It would make it a big pain in the a$$ for me. We already work 12 hour days, with most of the rest of the night spent studying or preparing for the next days flight. For me to change out of my flight suit to just to stop and get gas takes away that much more time from sleep or studying, neither of which are in large supply at UPT.

If every marine is a marine to the bone as has been said on here then there should be no problem with them stopping off base. Their uniform should be in good order at all times and should promote a very positive image off base.

Don't get me started on the discipline thing. I was TDY at a location with a marine F-18 unit parked right beside us. We caught, on more than one occasion, some of the maintainers trying to steal our stuff. Apparently we didn't catch them all because some people still had stuff missing. The best though was at the club, they loved to talk smack about the Air Force. But the second you said a bad thing about the marines they were ready to fight and did so on more than one occasion. I thought it was rather comical, maybe when you guys brainwash those dudes you should issue them a sense of humor. Speaking of sense of humor, I would bet that out there somewhere there is some marine all bent out of shape about that girl in the picture above.