It’s Mustache March, February is behind us… It’s Mustache March the sun’s pretending to peek out, the birds are chirping, and lip warmers are starting to grow everywhere, because…
I say again, it is Mustache March.
The Air Force has strict regulations about male facial hair – i.e. you can’t have any… unless it’s the month of March.
And that’s because of an Air Force tradition of defiance of regulations in the name of morale all because of one legendary former Air Force Academy Commandant of Cadets, Brigadier General Robin Olds.
Olds was a graduate of West Point, but he was always drawn to the skies. He flew P-38 Lightnings in World War II, shooting down 12 enemy aircraft. He then went on to fly F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam, adding four more kills.
But Olds wasn’t just a skilled pilot. He was a natural leader. He commanded the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing during the Vietnam War, leading his men into some of the most dangerous missions of the conflict.
And then there was the mustache.
Olds grew his signature handlebar mustache in defiance of regulations, and it became a symbol of his rebellious spirit. He wasn’t afraid to challenge authority, especially when he thought it was in the best interest of his men.
Olds was a true iconoclast. He was a brilliant strategist, a fearless pilot, and a charismatic leader. He was the kind of guy who made you want to be a better pilot, a better leader, a better person.
He was also a total badass.
THE MUSTACHE PARADOX
Digging a bit deeper, I read this Air University article on Olds and had a back and forth with Google Gemini on the paradox of his leadership style.
Specifically, the balance between discipline and adaptability.
It’s easy to see the mustache in Mustache March as not that deep. But what if I told you that it is way deeper than simply “bucking the system” with regards to facial hair regulations?
The more I’ve read, the more I can see that Mustache March is about understanding what it takes to win and doing those things even when they go against tradition.
Looking at it this way aligns with this phrase that I always appreciated at the Zoo, that, to me, really sums up the paradox of Mustache March in two words:
“Rigid flexibility”
General Olds clearly understood the need for discipline. Standards were standards, and when it mattered, they were enforced. But the more you read about him, the more you see that Olds was a rule understanderer…
Here’s how I think about that:
When I went through Basic Cadet Training, it was like the day after I-Day and the Hellcats AOC sat us all down with a message of “doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do.”
He went on to talk about the duality of the Letter of the Law and the Spirit of the Law.
Up until this point in my life, the Letter of the Law was all I ever considered. I had no conceptual understanding of a Spirit of the Law. Over time, though, I came to fully understand that the Letter and Spirit of laws can conflict.
What is one to do when that happens?
That’s what jumps out at me the most about General Olds’ leadership legacy. He fully understood the subtle art of knowing which rules to bend, or even break, when the mission demanded it.
It wasn’t about being a cowboy. It was about prioritizing the objective with the “ends” justifying the “means.”
If a rule stands in the way of mission success, well, that rule suddenly looks a lot less important. This is not reckless abandon, it is a calculated risk. Risk because breaking protocol has consequences, and Olds was always seemingly prepared to shoulder that responsibility.
His famous mustache was a blatant disregard for regulations that became a symbol of rules and regulations being guidelines, not handcuffs.
A middle finger to bureaucracy in the midst of a chaos.
And a decision making framework of rigid flexibility, when the letter and the spirit of a law conflict.
MANDATORY FUN’S MUSTACHE MARCH STICKER
I have been on a Nintendo kick and found a pretty cool tutorial video from Dom Designs on how to make a Super Mario in Adobe Illustrator.
Initially, I just thought it would be cool to give Mario a blue bus driver cap… but I was putting this together in the month of February and it hit me that this could be a really cool sticker paying homage to Mustache March.
They turned out great.
So, I immediately handed some out to the family and stuck one on my Cameo 4 cutter – to give it some extra mojo.
Then I shared a special surprise about these bad boys exclusively to newsletter subscribers.
$2.00Add to cart
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