Overboard, the war on Spandex

 

With less than a week to go before redeployment (Army term for going home), I find myself getting very impatient with the ever-growing rules sets in camp.  The new senior-enlisted soldier is bound and determined to run what is essentially a white collar operation as an Army camp.  The FRAGOs (Fragmentation Orders) grow now to one or two per day for all sorts of small items.  One for how to turn in reports, one for attending mandatory lectures, one for not eating in front of the locals during Ramazan.  The latest is the banning of Spandex.  Under the guise of not offending the locals while we are in our gym (but no doubt because some colonel was offended by rear flesh seen at spin class), they have now declared war on the skin clinging garments and the sleeveless tops that typically go with the ensemble.  Worse yet, the camp police have been ordered to enforce the ban.  Folks are pissed as they raid the gym every day like a SWAT team staring down the women and admonishing them for garments, seemingly too tight.  The Finnish Ambassador was caught up in one such rousting, to everyone’s horror.  The majority of the camp athletes are now heading to the US Embassy gyms much to their dismay.  We are spending $4.5B per year on this adventure, with less every day going to buy the goods and services to win the insurgency, but we seem to have plenty of manpower for such inane activities.  Its time to go.