Blemishes Minor After Soldiers Strip For Tattoo Inspection Warning Signs Of Extremism Sought By Post Commander

A mandatory body search for tattoos indicating membership in gangs or extremist groups has not resulted in serious disciplinary action against any soldier, officials at Fort Lewis say.

But some soldiers appeared willing to endure permanent scarring to make sure their tattoos couldn’t be scrutinized.

“At this point in the tattoo inspections, no tattoo has been found that is expected to result in either a court-martial or Article 15,” a nonjudicial reprimand, said Lt. Col. Gary Hovatter, a Fort Lewis spokesman.

There were verbal or written actions that were handled at the company level and were not reported to higher commands or compiled, Hovatter said Friday.

The searches, which lasted several weeks, stemmed from an order issued in July by Lt. Gen. George Crocker, the post commander.

According to a policy statement, all 19,000 soldiers were to strip down to their skivvies and be inspected for “tattoos or other ornamentation that present a threat to military fitness, good order and discipline.”

Prior to the searches, unit commanders were given catalogs of tattoos the Army regards as objectionable or gang-related including swastikas, Celtic crosses, rabbits with a black star on one ear, three-leaf clovers and skulls.

Hovatter stressed that “it’s not the tattoo itself that will cause the problem,” but that they were warning signs of possible objectionable behavior.

“Nobody’s getting in trouble for just having a tattoo,” he said. “The tattoo is significant only if it reflects an attitude of racism or other attitude of extremism.”

Some soldiers saw the inspection as an invasion of privacy; others said it was worth it to weed out extremists and gang members.

Many scrambled to comply with the cleanup orders.

Laser Treatment Centers Inc. in Kirkland - more than an hour’s drive from the fort - had about 10 soldiers show up to have their tattoos removed because of the inspection, company representatives said.

“We had a ton of calls because of it,” said Kim Sampson, an information specialist at Laser Treatment.

Soldiers were put off when they found that the standard laser removal of tattoos takes up to six gradual treatments, Sampson said.

Some of the soldiers took advantage of a more intensive, one-time laser burn-off, Sampson said, even though they were warned that procedure leaves scars.

Crocker formerly headed the elite 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., the only other base where soldiers have been subjected to a tattoo search.

Under his command there in 1995, James N. Burmeister, a white soldier, was accused of murdering a black couple to earn a spider web tattoo, a sign among skinheads at the base that the wearer had killed a black person.