We are a professional Army, and professional units don't conceal their identity by wearing masks," Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman.
The mindset embodied in that message - the belief that you can just declare something to be "what a professional force does" and then have others embrace it due to your flawless reasoning - never ceased to mystify me. Without any explanation as to why such a claim is valid, or inquiry into whether it is true, or thought as to whether it makes any sense, it is just supposed to be accepted and become standard procedure.