SupersonicMax said:
Can you explain why optics are so important? What benefit does it bring to the organization?
To be honest, I dont think I can explain why in a breif forum post but I will give it shot by telling a story from my GMT once upon a time...
This was back in 93 and we were doing our training up in Aldershot, NS. After several weeks of being cut off from civilization they bussed out the entire course to Kentville (I think its Kentville anyway, my memory could be failing me) so that people could get some banking done, buy some necessary ods and ends and just look after general admin that couldnt be done from the base. We were all in our combat uniforms at the time. So a small town now had an influx of soldiers walking around trying to get too much done in too little time.
As it turns out, the few girls that were on the course were as happy as could be to finally be off the base. So happy in fact that while crossing the street they were hopping and skipping along and even singing, literraly. Soldiers, who are trained to fight wars, hoping along like complese baffoons in uniform. It LOOKED terrible. The civilans walking about were looking at these people in disgust as if to say, "these are the people defending us"?. Those girls ended up getting rheamed out severely afterwards and optics was the central theme. To be fair, those girls were good soldiers, and did their jobs well. But when they were out and about they did not LOOK like soldiers are supposed to, or expected to look like and it became problematic. That they were fantastic soldiers did not matter at that point, the only thing that did matter is that they looked stupid.
When you are a soldier and you look like a bag of shit you do not instill confidence from the public, nor do you represent yourself well do your peers, subordinates and superiors.
Optics is also important because it is an extension of attitude. If you have a good attitude you are likely not going to look like a sack of shit on the job. Obviously there are people with very bad attitudes that still manage to wear their uniforms with pride or dress nicely so optics cannot exist as an important facet in a vaccum all by itself, but it is an important component.
If optics did not matter in the military, we wouldnt have uniforms. Uniforms serve no other purpose then optics. Granted there are spinoff benefits as well, but I would argue that they are all directly linked to optics.
If you look like crap, and you carry yourself like crap then you will not instill confidence in yourself from others. That may not be who it SHOULD be, but it in my opinion that is the way it is in reality. Like it or not, optics matters. When in uniform, wearing it well and maintaining it to a high standard is important. When out of uniform and around your peers or even civilians it is equally important to carry yourself well. However, following along that line of thinking, if you look like a punk, it wont matter how well you carry yourself because people will be fixated on the appearence of punk. Again, that may not be how it should be, but it is how it is.
Please note, when I use the word punk I am using it simply to make a point, I am in no way trying to connect the wearing of jeans to being a punk!
Hopefully this makes some sence.
