The late Col. Jeff Cooper, one of the great social commentators of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, was looking through the graduation photos of newly-minted Marine Corps officers a few years ago. He noticed that all of the young lieutenants were wearing their hats "square". Col. Cooper then looked through the photo archives from his own days in the Corps during WWII and couldn't find a single square hat, even (or perhaps especially) among the generals.

Col. Cooper commented that in his day, every Marine wanted to look dashing, and every Marine understood that "a square hat isn't dashing".