It’s time to stop violent hazing and spirit-building activities at military training academies.
I had a “Code Red” A Few Good Men flashback as I read of a recent incident at West Point Military Academy. My stomach is in knots. Apparently, at the United States Military Academy, freshman cadets mark the end of a seven week summer training with a pillow fight. This event is marked as a way to build class spirit and blow off steam after seven grueling weeks of hard work.
But this year was different. At the West Point, N.Y. campus, some cadets packed their pillowcases with hard objects, possibly helmets and rocks, that split lips, broke bones, dislocated shoulders and left 30 cadets injured and 24 concussed.
Those injured kept the code of silence for fear of repercussions; they did not name names. And according to an academy spokesman, all cadets returned to duty, although it was also reported that some had been hospitalized. This incident occurred on August 20, 2015, and discussion was abuzz on social media; West Point finally confirmed said incident to the New York Times on September 3, 2015.
Punishments have not been doled out, and the academy has no plans to end the annual tradition. According to one cadet, he was advised by his upperclassman commander, “If you don’t come back with a bloody nose, you didn’t try hard enough.”
“If you are an officer, you are supposed to make good decisions and follow the rules. You are supposed to mediate when everyone wants to go out and kill everyone.”
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A female first-year was quoted as saying “My friends were really excited . . . everyone felt really hard core.” And then she saw a male cadet being loaded into an ambulance, and changed her tune. “If you are an officer, you are supposed to make good decisions and follow the rules. You are supposed to mediate when everyone wants to go out and kill everyone.”
These types of activities occur at other military training institutions nationwide. At the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs ceremonial warfare traditions have seen similar violence. During the first winter storm of the year, Air Force freshman attempt to throw cadet leaders into the snow. In 2012, however, the snowball fight ended in 27 concussions, cuts, broken bones and a bite wound. Again, there was no punishment for this event and it was treated as a “teachable event.”
While I realize it was fiction, and I realize we are talking about one cadet and not a group activity, I cannot help but relive the courtroom moment when Tom Cruise confronts Jack Nicholson with “Did you order the Code Red?!” and he finally replies with “You’re Goddamn right I did!” And, of course, that was his undoing, it was a murder case with a Hollywood ending and an apopleptic Nicholson is led off in handcuffs.
But this is real life. We are talking about sanctioned violent acts against a fellow officers/cadets for what reason? In the movie’s case it was because the cadet didn’t measure up. In the examples above the activities are to show camaraderie? Toughness? To blow off steam? These are the ways these institutions have chosen to teach community, relief, anger, joy, frustration, and happiness.
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I am not from a military family. I know there is a structure and code and specificity to the armed forces that I could never understand. And, I have a great respect for those who serve our country, who make incredible, and often the ultimate, sacrifice to protect, honor, and pay respect to our country. What I do not understand or condone is the slippery slope I see when these kinds of behaviors go unchecked. In most of these cases, we are talking about very young impressionable men and women. Young men and women who are committed to their cause and code. Allowing a lack of accountability for behaviors that do not follow the honor of what the young cadet said, making good decisions, following the rules, and mediating when everyone wants to go out and kill everyone. That is where it breaks down for me. And that is where someone needs to step in and say, enough. This is not how we conduct ourselves as representatives of the United States of America. As colleagues. As fellow officers. And as human beings.
Photo Credit: Flickr:/West_Point
Paratroopers think this is funny. FUNNY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdBBbU7hxo Different viewpoint. “Mission unspoken, destination unknown. Don’t know if we’re even coming home.” Airborne Mama, don’t you cry. You’ll get his jump pay by and bye. “If I die in a sea of blood, Bury me with case of Bud Case of Bud and a jug of rum We’ll raise hell ’til Kingdom come. If I die on the Russian front Bury me with a Russian…… Never mind. Old Austro-Hungarian…. Morning red, morning red will thou shine upon me dead. Soon the bugles will be blowing Then to death must I be going… Read more »
Broken bones and rung bells are not clean fun if you have to pay for it. Have you heard that medical care in America is expensive?
And once we outlaw war, we need to find somebody to enforce that. So it would be a matter of the cricket players taking on the rugby players.
If you can’t hurt your friends for fun, how can you kill the enemy when you’re serious?
And speaking of serious, it’s difficult to criticize training as irrational and dangerous when what you’re training for is irrational and dangerous in a world where the crazies end up as kings. Or maybe it’s kings end up as crazies so we should start by outlawing them even before we outlaw the wars they start.
P.S. ‘Protect and serve’ is for law enforcement. That isn’t the military…yet.
Law enforcement no longer believes in protect and service except to serve the corporations and wealthy people. In addition, the police are becoming like the military with all the military hardware gear that they have been receiving from the federal government and they use it in Ferguson, Missouri. They acted like soldiers in some 3rd World country. “If you can’t hurt your friends for fun, how can you kill the enemy when you’re serious?’ That sentence makes no sense at all. General Patton state that you are suppose to make the enemy died for your country not the other way… Read more »
I’ve never come across anyone who has read Japanese Destroyer Captain. Great book. Captain Hara was my kind of guy. I especially like his account of the battle of Vella Gulf as well as the JFK connection. We were lucky he wasn’t running the Japanese naval campaigns.
I’m a veteran. My father and I served several wars apart. In his time, WWII, and in my time, Vietnam–I was not deployed–pickup tackle football was forbidden. At least, you weren’t supposed to be caught at it. Too many career ending injuries. Or you get profiled out of, say, Infantry into finance where your bum knee isn’t a factor. Problem is, training is that dangerous, too. Just jumping off the back of a truck with a hundred pounds of gear can, if you land wrong mess up something. And you’ll be jumping out of choppers, if only simulators which don’t… Read more »
It is Jenny Kanevsky’s business and mine as well since we the taxpayers are footing the bill for your injuries. If you don’t like it, then you and your fellow soldiers should not be getting socialist government medicine and pay for your own injuries out of your own pockets.
By the way, you had American generals like Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, and Matthew Ridgeway who hatethe physical hazing that they receive when they were at West Point and did everything in their power to stop it without much success.
Richard, I agree
The writer, I in fact state that I am not from a military background but have great respect for those who serve. There is a huge disconnect, in my opinion, when one calls concussions (precursors to brain damage and dementia) and broken bones “good clean fun.” How do those behaviors protect and serve? So many ways to have good clean fun that don’t involve XRAYS, MRIS and permanent brain damage.
The writer has admittedly no familiarity with the military. In which this would be good, clean fun. Broken bones and concussions? What does she think happens in routine training in the Combat Arms? Presuming these folks survive one thing or another, they’ll laugh about it later, the winners and losers together.