Can A Potential Recruit Have A Neck Tattoo In The Navy

Got Ink? Navy Is Relaxing Its Rules on Tattoos

A sailor showed his tattoo during Fleet Week in New York in 2008.

Credit... Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

April 29, 2016

The United states Navy is loosening its rules governing tattoos effective Saturday in response to their growing popularity amidst immature people and to remove a potential barrier for desired recruits.

Under the new rules, in that location will be no limit to the size or number of tattoos sailors can have beneath the elbow and the articulatio genus. Previous rules restricted the sizes of tattoos on arms and legs. And for the get-go fourth dimension, sailors can have a neck tattoo, although information technology cannot be longer than an inch in whatever direction.

"We only got to the bespeak where nosotros realized we needed to be honest with ourselves and put something in place that was going to reverberate the realities of our country and the needs of our Navy," Mike D. Stevens, chief chief petty officer of the Navy, told The Navy Times. "Nosotros need to make sure that we're not missing whatsoever opportunities to recruit and retain the all-time and the brightest considering of our policies."

A Harris Poll conducted concluding fall establish that three in ten Americans have at to the lowest degree ane tattoo, upwardly from almost two in 10 four years earlier. Tattoos are especially popular amongst younger Americans, with 47 percent of millennials and 36 percentage of members of Generation X saying they had at least 1, Harris reported.

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Credit... Jeff Phillips

Those demographics represent an important pool of potential sailors for the Navy. The United States Naval Institute reported that the average age of recruits in all the armed services is xx simply that the 17-to-24 age group is a shrinking population. Further, as the economy has improved, fewer young people are interested in enlisting.

Tattoos have long been entwined with American seafaring civilization, which developed a repertory over time of anchors, dragons and pinup girls, amongst other symbols.

Jeff Phillips, 42, of Jacksonville, Fla., said that during his Navy service in the early 1990s it was seen every bit odd if y'all were enlisted and did non have a tattoo.

"It was a rite of passage," said Mr. Phillips, who got a tattoo of Bugs Bunny nigh his left biceps. " 'You don't take a tattoo yet? What's wrong with yous?' "

John-Henry Doucette, 42, of Virginia Beach, Va., who served from 1991 to 1996, said he got a "tremendously bad version of Hemingway" on his upper right arm ii years after enlisting.

Told about the relaxed tattoo rules, he said, "Information technology doesn't sound like the Navy I served in."

But, Mr. Doucette said, if information technology helps attract young, smart recruits, all the better, adding that information technology does non matter what sailors expect like or how many tattoos they have. What does matter, he said, is: "Do your work. Be practiced to each other. Have a good transport."

At All-Out Tattoo in Norfolk, Va., Jason Sumners, a tattoo artist of 22 years, said he expects the new Navy rules to hateful little to business, even if the city is home to Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world.

Mr. Sumners, who is known as Hero, said newly enlisted personnel are the most careful about the rules, but sailors who have served even a few months disregard them and get what they desire.

"Equally soon as they arrive and effigy information technology out, they don't care," he said. Sailors are seldom seriously punished for infractions, he said.

Mr. Sumners said that although he knew of the military regulations, he would be the last one to enforce them. "Why would I permit money walk out the door?" he asked.

But, he added, "If you get something on your confront, you're an idiot."