This man won’t cure your disease… he’ll kill it. He’ll kill it, spit it on a pike, and then parade it’s lifeless body through the streets as a warning to any other diseases. He is Dr. Bad-ass. He is Capt. Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, US Army.
I’ve posted about this topic (this guy in particular) before so this is really just an update. I have to say that when I first heard about the Sikhs wanting to serve but not wanting to shave their beards, trim their hair, or doff their turbans I was totally against it. After some rather pointed comments to that post and some research on my own (at the behest of one of those commentators) I changed my tune. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Sikhs are bad-asses. Any religion that requires you to learn their martial art, requires you to carry a dagger or a sword, and requires you to step in to defend the helpless is pretty damned alright by me. Plus, the Sikhs have been kicking ass for centuries… the men AND the women… mostly against their mortal enemies, The Moghul Empire. In case you didn’t know it, the Moghul Empire was an imperial Islamic Caliphate that was spreading like wildfire throughout central Asia and Hindustan. That animosity between the two religions continues today.
But back tot he story at hand: The Army is granting an exception to it’s uniform policy to allow this one guy to serve as a doctor and still retain his articles of faith…
NEW YORK — The U.S. Army will make an exception to a decades-old rule and allow a Sikh doctor to serve without removing his turban and cutting his hair, an advocacy group said Friday.
Capt. Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi is the first Sikh to be allowed to go on active duty with a turban, beard and unshorn hair in more than 20 years, according to the New York-based Sikh Coalition.
The decision does not overturn an Army policy from the 1980s that regulates the wearing of religious items, Acting Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Gina Farrisee wrote in a letter to Kalsi dated Thursday and posted online by the Sikh Coalition.
Instead, the Army’s decision follows a long-standing practice of deciding such requests on a case-by-case basis, the letter said. Farrisee said the Army had weighed Kalsi’s request against factors such as “unit cohesion, morale, discipline, safety and/or health.”
I, for one, am glad that the Army made this exception. I’m generally not an “exception to policy” kind of guy, but if this guy wants to serve as a medical officer and he’s willing to take all of the thankless crap that goes with along with being an Army doctor as well as the crap he’ll probably catch for wearing a turban, good on him. More bad-asses in the Army that want to help out Joe AND have a long standing animosity toward Islamic Imperialism? Yeah, I’m good with that.
