At 17, Jesse Peters got his first tattoo. He was hooked.

“It’s a way to express all the things I’m into and my personality,” he said.

Now a mechanic in the Coast Guard with tattoos blanketing his arms, Peters said if he applied for Officer Candidate School, “I doubt they’d let me in.”

In an attempt to maintain a professional appearance in the service branch most in the public eye, the Coast Guard has tightened its tattoo policy for the first time in 30 years.

Those most affected are potential recruits, but some Coast Guardsmen may be ineligible for command positions or highly visible assignments such as recruiting and public relations.

Tattoos on the face and neck have been banned for the past 30 years. Now tattoos are prohibited from the hands, too, so that nothing shows in the dress uniform. Current Coast Guardsmen with tattoos are grandfathered in.

The biggest change with the new policy regards “sleeve” tattoos, such as the kind Peters’ sports. In tattoo jargon, sleeve refers to an arm fully covered in ink.

The guideline sets specific limits on the quantity of coverage allowed. New recruits are limited to 25 percent coverage between the wrist and elbow or knee and ankle. Current members are not allowed to add tattoos to that zone if they exceed the 25-percent threshold.

Chris Saunders, a Coast Guard aviation mechanic with tattoos on both biceps, said he has heard people joking about “getting smothered and covered with tattoos before the new policy kicked in” this summer.

Saunders said he has all the tattoos he wants already.

“I probably wasn’t going to get anything below the elbows or on the neck or anything distasteful, anyway,” he said.

Saunders said the policy limiting sleeve tattoos makes sense since so many Coast Guard uniforms have short-sleeves.

“I guess it’s good since we’re more in the public eye,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who was truly upset about it.”

Ensign Andrew Munoz aboard the Coast Guard cutter Storis said it’s an unfortunate cliché that being a sailor equals getting tattoos.

“That’s kind of like saying everyone on cutters are drunks,” said Munoz, who is tattooless.

“I think (the new policy) is in line with maintaining a professional appearance now that we are much more in the public with TV and all of the disasters going on,” he said.

Munoz said the new policy recognizes that some people have a cultural bias against those with tattoos.

“Our primary job is to serve the public. It’s easier to do so without tattoos,” he said. “I didn’t think it fits with the uniform. The whole purpose of a uniform is for everyone to look the same.”

In Alaska, several potential Coast Guard enlistees have been turned away because of their tattoos, recruiter Joe Crockett said. Nationwide, nearly 30 applicants have been rejected under the new tattoo policy.

In the three and a half years he’s been in the Anchorage recruiting station, perhaps four applicants have been turned away for excessive, offensive or ill-placed tattoos.

Problem tattoos he’s seen include a rebel flag with a pole that ended in a noose, teardrops on the face, inked hands and other tattoos “that could be construed as something racist or sexist,” Crockett said.

“Kids get tattoos on their hands and neck and don’t realize the effect it has on their lives,” he said.

Munoz said the Coast Guard had to respond to cultural changes that increased the prevalence of tattoos.

A tattoo boom in the 1990s proved inking was no longer just for craggy sailors, convicts and bikers anymore.

In fact, about 30 percent of people ages 18-34 have a tattoo, according to a survey this year by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University.

But, some stigmas still remain, and Peters said some people have a different perception of him because he’s let little of his arms go unetched.

“People get the wrong impression about me,” he said. “But I don’t let that bother me too much.”

Peters recommends those thinking about enlisting in the Coast Guard think twice if tattoos are a priority for them.

“I love the Coast Guard, but they run a lot of my life as it is,” he said.

Mirror writer Kristen Inbody may be reached via e-mail at kinbody@kodiakdailymirror.com.