A basic rule for uniform that all service members learn early in their military careers is how to keep their gig line straight, meaning that their trouser fly, belt buckle and shirt buttons on their uniform all form a straight line.
But if a rule — even one as well known as the “gig line” — isn’t written down, is it even a rule?
That was the issue facing the Air Force, whose uniform regulations stopped spelling out for airmen exactly what the gig line was nearly 14 years ago.
Now the service is once again formalizing what had become an unwritten standard.
Released last, the Air Force’s latest update to its dress and appearance instruction includes an official definition of a gig line: “When members wear shirt tucked into trousers or slacks with front fly opening, the button front edge of the shirt, the outside of the belt buckle (when required) and the edge of the fly will align. This alignment creates a gig line.”
This begs the question: Why is the Air Force explaining to airmen something they should already know?
It turns out the Air Force removed the formal definition of a gig line from its instruction on dress and appearance back in 2011, an Air Force official told Task & Purpose on Thursday. At the time, the service was “providing less explicit language” in such documents.
Since then, leaders and airmen have asked for clearer guidance “so the standards are easier to comply with and enforce,” the Air Force official said.
That’s exactly the purpose of the review of dress and appearance standards that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced earlier this month.
“Changes to policies in recent years have resulted in unintentional complexities and ambiguities, making certain policies difficult to understand, comply with, and enforce,” Allvin wrote in a Jan. 24 memo. “You deserve better … we owe you better.”
To be clear, just because it wasn’t defined in Air Force dress and appearance regulations for more than a decade doesn’t mean that the gig line stopped being enforced during that time.
“It’s a standard we’ve upheld for years,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “While it wasn’t explicitly in the most recent regulation, we’ve added it back into DAFI 36-2903 [dress and appearance standards].”
Shockingly, Task & Purpose discovered while researching this story that the Marines — the pre-eminent military authority on outrageously explicit uniform regulations — do not define “gig line” in its 263-page Marine Corps Uniform Regulations manual. The closest the Marines get is in a note on belt wear: “Belts for all uniforms will be worn at the natural waistline with the right edge of the buckle (wearer’s right) on line with the edge of the fly or coat front.” In other words, with a straight gig line. But Task & Purpose has been assured that Marines do know what the term “gig line” means.
The Army, on the other hand, defines the standard in Army Pamphlet 670-1, Guide to the Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia: “Soldiers will wear these uniforms with the shirt tucked into the trousers so that the shirt edge is aligned with the front fly opening, so the outside edge of the belt buckle forms a straight ‘gig line.’”
Task & Purpose found the term “gig line” referenced in uniform regulations for the Notre Dame Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. A source within the Department of the Navy was familiar with the term when asked by Task & Purpose on Friday.
The Air Force’s return to a letter-of-the-law approach to even minor uniform matters mirrors other new rules announced recently, including that male airmen’s hair is not allowed to touch their ears, defining acceptable nail polish for airmen in uniform as either French or American Manicure, and getting rid of Duty Identifier Patches.
The Air Force will also soon require airmen and Space Force guardians with medical profiles for shaving to undergo a medical evaluation to renew their waivers. As of March 1, all currently issued medical shaving profiles will expire 90 days after an airman or guardian’s next Periodic Health Assessment.