Memo to Journalists: Marines Wear Covers, Not Hats

When the president of the United States picks it up, the news media picks it up.

“President Trump on Saturday retrieved a Marine’s hat and placed it on the officer’s head after it blew off amid turbulence from the president’s helicopter,” The Hill reported. ABC similarly noted in a headline, “Trump stopping to pick up Marine’s hat blown away by wind is president’s latest viral moment,” while The Daily Caller headline read: “Trump stops to pick up Marine’s hat.”

But no Marine wears a hat on his head. A Marine wears a cover, which belongs on the head in most outdoor situations and belongs somewhere else in most indoor situations. Do otherwise, or call your cover a “hat,” and life becomes unpleasant. Alas, the world of the USMC remains as alien to the Fourth Estate as MAGA country. Surely a Hill reporter calling a lance corporal an “officer” indicates as much.

The Marine stood at attention as his dress-blues cover blew off his head not once but twice on Saturday. Trump patted the Marine on the shoulder before the cover, perhaps by the force of the helicopter rotor blades, again flew off his head. Trump retrieved it but wisely allowed an officer from another branch to fix the enlisted man’s cover issue, which became an issue when covered by the press.

Pedantic? Sure. A cover is a hat is a lid is a cap. But in the age of petty fact-checkers who yell “gotcha” at Donald Trump for saying Hillary Clinton “acid-washed” her server (“Clinton’s team used an app called BleachBit; she did not use a corrosive chemical.”), one can’t beat the nitpickers. One can only join them.