The stolen beard

Hipsters have made the full beard a universally accepted appearance across society. Accepted by everyone? No, a small minority believes that the damn hipsters have only stolen the beard. The full beard has returned to the West through the Special Operation Forces that completed their job in Afghanistan. Jack Murphy, former Special Forces Operator, active beard wearer, and SOFREP editor, has written a diatribe against the hipster beard:

In a pitiful attempt to create an anti-society in the arts and crafts sector, America is plagued by hipsters with painfully awkward facial hair. These beta males roam the streets of Brooklyn and talk about Facebook, actually having no special opinion except their carefully maintained, unkempt appearance.

These Manginas are unaware that it was the Alpha males of the US Special Forces who popularized the beard once again. In 2001, terrorists struck America, destroyed the World Trade Center, and torn a burning hole into one side of the Pentagon. In response, America deployed the Special Forces as experts in unconventional warfare.

To avoid standing out in their host nation - among their allies in the "Northern Alliance" - the soldiers of the Special Forces grew beards themselves. The full beard is still a status symbol in Afghanistan, representing masculinity and age. Many village elders wear beards that are swept backwards under their armpits when a strong gust of wind blows through the Hindu Kush.

To earn respect in this tribal culture, beards were allowed and introduced in Special Forces teams - but always combined with a typical American touch, the baseball cap was always included.

Over time, the beard in the Special Forces community became an institution in two different ways:

1. The Afghan militias respected their mentors from the American Special Forces and knew that Americans with beards and baseball caps were the "Real Deal." These were the guys who came to "kick ass" and stand up to the enemy. So, it was important for SOF to maintain the image of the status quo.

2. The beard became a "cool guy" status symbol within Special Operations. Every soldier in Afghanistan concluded that the SOF guys with beards were the ones doing the cool stuff. Maybe they didn't know exactly what, but surely something cool - whether it was true or not.

A Ranger told me around 2005 that it was important to have a beard - not to blend in with the Afghans, but rather because there was additional respect when Rangers had to speak with other JSOC (United States Joint Special Operations Command) members.

So, a long-standing status symbol in Afghan culture, the beard had now migrated and became an "institution" in the Special Operations community. Although the hardened Special Forces fighters let their beards grow as early as 2001, the full beard was only picked up in the hipster culture around 2006.

Thesis: To divert attention from their own intellectual, physical, emotional, and sexual inadequacies, hipsters began to compensate for the lack of testosterone by growing beards. These hip guys imitated in a futile attempt to secure their legitimacy as men in their environment, US Special Forces soldiers. But this didn't happen in the badlands of Afghanistan, it was in the green-filled and gluten-free capital of America: Brooklyn.

Every real man in America knows that the pinnacle of masculinity is to be a Special Operations soldier. It follows the great tradition of men who hunted mammoths in the Stone Age, later killed Nazis in World War II, and ultimately landed on the moon. Being a Special Operations Operator is the top of the totem pole when it comes to man status. Dear readers may question my logic, but deep in their weak, insecure hipster hearts, they know I speak the truth.

This is how the hipsters hijacked the glory of the Special Forces for their own sinister purposes. The hipster beard hides a deep and shameful history, filled with off-the-shelf cheese, homemade beer, and homemade shoes.

"The hipsters have stolen our beards without knowing the profound history of American warfare behind it."

Special Forces soldiers grew beards to blend in with their Afghan comrades. To put it as politely as possible: Afghan culture, with its tribal system and misogyny, has a certain "Stone Age mentality."

That's right, the anti-war, peace-and-love, open-to-everything, feel-good hipsters are imitating a fashion that has its direct lineage from groups like the Taliban. At least the Special Forces soldiers understood that such adaptation only makes limited sense. But the hipster is a naive creature, lost in a sea of gourmet ice cream parlors and gluten-free pizzas - knowing nothing about the dark ideology that they let grow on their faces every day.

JACK MURPHY is Managing Editor at SOFREP.COM. He served in the 5th Special Forces Group and was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places. He left the US Army in 2010. He studied political science at Columbia University. Murphy is the author of "Reflexive Fire," "Target Deck," the PROMIS series, and has published many articles on weapons, tactics, Special Operations, terrorism, and counter-terrorism.