FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Feb. 8, 2012) -- Military recruits who wear glasses won't be issued S9s or "birth control glasses" anymore -- the nickname given to the iconic BCGs because many service members believe that while wearing the frames, it is impossible to appear attractive.
Beginning this month, Fort Leonard Wood's basic trainees will be fitted with a new frame, the 5A.
I still have a pair--in a box under my bed, mind you--that was issued to me at Fort Wood many years ago. To remember the awfulness that they are. Behold:
If the pair on the table is the replacement, it looks familiar. I could swear that it existed 25 years ago. I recall that it was one of those things you heard "some soldiers" can get. But not anyone you knew.
I had split training so I went home after basic training and then went to advanced individual training the next summer. By then, I'd bought a pair of civilian glasses that looked very similar to the frame shown on the table. It was close enough to that style that I got away with wearing them.
I can only remember a couple times when some NCO took a close look at them and told me to take them off because they weren't regulation glasses. So I'd put them in my pocket until the observant sergeant was out of sight. Luckily, my eyesight is good enough to go without them for most tasks, anyway. Unless I was shooting or needed to see the blackboard from where I was sitting, I went without them anyway.
But it is funny that the BCG has lasted so long. Longer than the beret. Funny, too, that the replacement appears to be a couple decades out of style, as well.
