Army Recruits Quickly Abused in Training

[RamboLiberal]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050627/ap_on_re_us/drill_sergeants_charged

The recruits of Echo Company stumbled off the bus for basic training at Fort Knox to the screams of red-faced drill instructors. That much was expected. But it got worse from there.

Echo Company's top drill instructor seized a recruit by the back of the neck and threw him to the ground. Other soldiers were poked, grabbed or cursed.

Once inside the barracks, Pvt. Jason Steenberger says, he was struck in the chest by the top D.I. and kicked "like a football." Andrew Soper, who has since left the Army, says he was slapped and punched in the chest by another drill instructor. Pvt. Adam Roster says he was hit in the back and slammed into a wall locker.

Eventually, four Army drill instructors and the company commander would be brought up on charges. Four have been convicted so far.

Well that will certainly help recruitment.

[jmaier]

1. Okay, this isn't really typical

What in the hell got into this crew! Perhaps their last tour was at Abu Gahraib?

[RamboLiberal]

3. One said he was burned out

Staff Sgt. Jason J. Harris, a drill instructor who has not been charged in the scandal, testified at one court-martial that it was the worst treatment of recruits he had ever seen.

Staff Sgt. David H. Price, Echo Company's head drill sergeant, said on the witness stand at his own court martial in April that he was "burned out" from being a D.I. for too long. He also said that he felt that the guidelines on abuse limited his ability to turn recruits into tough soldiers.

I think some of the DI's may be getting the Vietnam syndrome - they want to make these recruits tough enough to survive Iraq. Or they just finished watching Full Metal Jacket.

[saigon68]

49. THEY ARE THUGS AND HOODLUMS

I WONDER IF THEY TREATED THE IRAQI'S ANY BETTER?

SOMEHOW I DOUBT TI.

[Freedomfried]

5. Things have changed in a post 9/11 world

(don't you all get sick of hearing that?)

[annabanana]

41. Boy, THAT'S the truth...

That damn drum ought to be pretty much worn out by now. I don't think it's as effective as it used to be, with so many lies already covered by the din.

Oh, and welcome to DU :toast:

[Eloriel]

51. So true

So DAMN true.

I LOVE your ID. And hearty welcome to DU!

:bounce:

[Eloriel]

52. Got so excieted I clicked the Send button twice, I guess.

Dupe

[JohnnyBoots]

7. I think they know what a shit storm they are sending these

boys into, but they don't have the social skills to articulate it so it comes out as excessive "tough love." They were out of line, but still had their best interests in mind, does that make sense?

[MichiganVote]

9. No. And I think you should consider this view more carefully.

Half these guys laugh their asses off after they have abused recruits.

[JohnnyBoots]

10. Too be honest

I'm drunk right now and feeling very idealistic. No lie.

[MichiganVote]

12. LOL. Well get some coffee in your gut baby.

[powwowdancer]

13. How Do You Know?

I mean, sure, when I was in back in the 80's, they couldn't put their "hands on you," but they still had ways of making you wish you were dead. (Any squids out there remember I.T. from boot?) Boot camp is psychological warfare at it's best. I'll not go into why here. Basically, there are good and bad folks in all walks of life; the military is no different. You're gonna get some dirtbags at every RTC, or indeed, any other command. I think that in this instance, there were so many that THE MAN had his hand forced in order to save his own BEE-hind. God bless the digital age. There's no place where a scoundrel can hide his or her sins for long.

powwowdancer out

[MindPilot]

18. yeah so there are rules that a DI, TI or CC can't touch you

but who are you gonna tell? It's not like the DI is not going to know who turned him in.

In boot camp they control every moment of your life and every action you take.

You have to wait until you are out to report it, and by then it doesn't matter; the last thing you want is to ever see that mother fucker again.

[TahitiNut]

19. "Boot camp is psychological warfare at it's best"?? Not really.

I've gone through the four most common forms of hazing/indoctrination: a military service academy (USCGA), Army basic training (Ft. Leonard Wood), college fraternity (PKA), and ROTC (in the south).

Nobody did it as well as the service academies: USMA at West Point, USNA at Annapolis, USAA at Colorado Springs, USCGA at New London. July 1961 to June 1962 was about 50 weeks of hazing/discipline/indoctrination that few enlisted trainees would survive. Basic training was a walk in the park in comparison. Believe me. Fraternity and ROTC were laughers. My biggest challenge in the latter three was keeping the "bring it on" sneer off my face. Yeah... I was young and stupid. :shrug:

[saigon68]

55. Kick

[DontBlameMe]

22. Where did you go to boot?

I was at Orlando RTC. They hardly even yelled at you until 1-5 day, the day you passed/failed your physical. It was down hill from there, though. I had a CC (Company Commander) throw me into my rack (bunk) because my washcloth was backwards.

As for I.T, oh, yeah, I tore an abdominal muscle, both rotator cuffs, and had a groin pull. That was on 1-5 day. Spent 6 days on light duty and got transfered back a week.

Did they give you half sit ups?

[powwowdancer]

36. Great Mistakes

Yeah, I went to Great Lakes, aka, "Great Mistakes." Did you know that they've closed the Orlando RTC? I must've "won" the boot camp abuse lottery, by the way some of these guys talk. We were treated like dirt by a sadistic little Italian gnome of a boatswain's mate named "Moscatelli." I'll never forget it if I live to be a hundred. I was recruit division yeoman, and I can remember taking 4 folks to I.T. and only coming back with 2. That kind of attrition was common. Every night. Think about it... nineteen and twenty year olds being hauled off in ambulances. I was on fire watch (snort) one night, and had to comfort (and report) a guy who'd completely lost his mind and was holed up under a stair well chain smoking and crying uncontrollably. I was sent to I.T. twice, (once for defending a shipmate and once because the fingers in my gloves were pointed in the wrong direction in my locker during an inspection). There were 55 gallon drums posted in an oval in the indoor hangar where I.T. was held. They held up the ropes that defined the "track." They were also there for recruits to vomit in, and vomit they did. I think that perhaps the folks who sniff at boot were either very fortunate or time has smoothed some of the rough edges off of their memory. Maybe a little of both.

powwowdancer out

[LanternWaste]

50. CPO Nero

RTC Orlando for me back in '85.
My CC was CPO Nero. Sadistic, martinette sack of sh*t. We weren't looking forward to graduation to leave RTC, we were looking forward to so we'd never have to see that excuse-of-a-man again

[driver8]

23. Navy boot camp is a fucking joke...

I went in the mid eighties and I don't remember being challenged mentally or physically. As a matter of fact, I have never slept so soundly as I did at Navy boot camp. I wasn't a trouble maker, but I did go to "indoor tennis" (I.T.) a couple of times.

My father asked me what I thought of boot camp when I got out and I said, "It was a big disappointment." I wanted to be pushed as hard as I could be pushed and that never came close to happening.

[rppper]

26. navy boot wasn't as hard as the others, but the mission is.....

different in the navy to...they don't want mindless killers, they want you to follow orders and SOP's to the letter. thats why they send you to "I.T.'s"(known as marching parties in RTC San Diego btw...ask me how i know that one!!!)if you fold your socks "pu$$y in", roll your tee shirts the wrong way or tie your boondockers left over right.....

i did more than my fair share of push-ups and 8 count body builders, but our CC's were pretty decent. we heard rumors of other CC's hitting guys in their companies, but that was never substantiated....the meanest CC's were the old school filipinos...hands down...little mutant 5 foot 3 35 year master chief cooks full of piss and vinegar. you just knew these guys had been shit on for 3 decades and were taking it out on you.....

and military hazing doesn't stop in boot camp either...all you have to do is qualify submarines or surface warfare and find out, or be slow on your quals....my captain, at the time of my sub warfare qual ceremony, stood on the mess decks and "tacked" on my dolphins after telling everyone there not to do it...wink wink...then chuckling as he did it. this was a few years after the navy publicly banned hazing.

personaly, i didn't mind...it was an honor...and i am a big guy. my wife kissed my bruises and puncture wounds from the pins when we returned...she was proud too...they are now tattooed on the exact spot too...right over the scar... i was guilty of carrying on the tradition to a lesser degree as well...a light backhand hit on the dolphins and a handshake was my MO...not the monkey wrench/CO2 fire extinguisher/battle lantern/head-butt/closed fist blows i recieved. and while i knew this was overkill, i took it nonetheless...it was tradition. when one knuckle dragging A-gang machinist broke my original set of dolphins with his blow, he gave me his original set...nice pewter ones that are not made anymore...that was part of the tradition too....that was old navy...old diesel boat traditions we carried over on the nuke boats. the underwater navy is nothing like the surface navy.

don't mis-read this....i am certainly not condoning hazing in any way, just relating an experience. those boot camp D.I.'s were wrong...there is no place for that sort of full metal jacket bullshit anymore. thats the bullshit that breeds the abu garib torturers. roast 'em i say...burned out my ass...take some leave, go to the mountains...go to a shrink...but don't beat on the recruits. big differences between tacking on pins and beating recruits...they are there to learn...to gain knowledge to make them better soldiers and sailors...not to be beaten by burn-outs with a chip on their shoulder. have fun busting big rocks into little ones ass-hats.....

[driver8]

31. You are absolutely right -- big difference in missions...

I was in the Navy nuclear power program. We were taught from day one to question everything we see and hear. This was necessary for our jobs. However, the nucs questioning everything they heard did not always go over with the "brass". Hey -- you guys trained us this way!

rppper -- what boat were you on?? I was a surface puke, unfortunately. I volunteered for subs from day one of nuc school. It just so happened the Abraham Lincoln was manning up so the carriers were short nucs -- I ended up on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. We definitely did not enjoy the camraderie that you enjoyed on the boats.

[Massacure]

29. Shoulda joined the marines then.

:P

[trogdor]

44. Stress.

I spent several years at Fort Jackson. Being a drill sergeant is among the most stressful jobs in the Army, especially in the summer, when you often get a new platoon of recruits right after seeing the last one graduate.

You get 60 Joes (or Janes) at a time, and if you're lucky, three drills (1 E7, 2 E6) to train them, supervise them, etc. Out of those 60, roughly ten will be either untrainable, medically or mentally disqualified, or just a shady character of some sort. If you're fortunate, most of those will have been weeded out for you at the reception station, and you'll never see them, but there's always one or two who will have you pulling out your hair.

You'll spend about 14-16 hours a day (average) with your trainees, seven days a week. You'll get to know them better than you'd really care to if you didn't have the awesome responsibility of training them well enough to survive in today's Army fighting the Global War on Terrorism (TM).

Add to this the fact that most drill sergeants are married with preschool or elementary school-age children, for whom you have to make whatever time you can, and deal with their inevitable problems, even though you're exhausted, and you have the recipe for potential disaster, that is, unless you've been thoroughly screened properly prior to donning that Smokey The Bear hat.

Even this screening isn't 100% foolproof. From time to time, you get drills who screw the female trainees (consentual or otherwise), slap trainees around, start drinking heavily, you name it. These are (fortunately) in the minority. They're just getting more press now that the heat is on.

[marmar]

2. Let's see...

You get abused in training, you'll get sent off to fight in a fraudulent war where the danger of getting killed or injured is awfully high, and they'll cut your pay and benefits when you return. Why wouldn't anyone want to enlist?

[mom cat]

4. This article would be a great handout at recruitment centers!

[geek tragedy]

6. Why don't our young people want to enlist?

On the bright side, they don't have IED's exploding around them until they get to Iraq.

[punpirate]

8. Since putting one's hands on a recruit...

... and corporal punishment are forbidden by regulation, and they want them to survive... how about teaching them Arabic? :shrug:

[MindPilot]

16. these are new rules

It was not uncommon for a cc when I was in boot to just haul off and punch somebody. Sometimes two CCs would gang up on one recruit, one would hold him while the other punched and kicked him. Once I was made to hold a guy while the CC punched him in the gut until he puked. Then I had to clean it up.

On edit: I was in 35 years ago and the no-touch rules were implemented in '85.

[punpirate]

20. I was in almost forty years ago...

... and they were in effect then, at least in the army. A DI could not touch a recruit unless the recruit were in imminent danger. The standard punitive measure (often collective punishment) was push-ups, often fifty at a time just to get someone's attention. Now, there were DIs who looked the other way when student cadre roughed someone up, and that was part of the reason why they had that system.

But, my suggestion about language goes back to Vietnam. A few crude phrases just reinforces in the occupied public they are dealing with people who are indifferent to their welfare. It's also one of the primary reasons why US forces' intelligence is terrible in Iraq right now--virtually no one in the rank and file speaks the language beyond a few words. If every squad had someone who could speak and interpret at least a basic 1500 words, the situation would be much, much different.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

28. I went in the Army in 1975

The drill sargents were not alowed to lay there hands on you back then either. That said they did a pretty good job of intimadating you verbally.

[5thGenDemocrat]

33. YMBL

Right. I went into the Army in January 1974 and the drill sergeants I had kept their hands to themselves (this was at Fort Knox, BTW). They had plenty of ways to make one's life hell for seven weeks, anyhow.
John
D-15-4 "We are the best!," Fort Knox, KY, Jan-Mar 1974.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

54. B-4-1

Fort Jackson SC Oct-Dec 1975

[Supersedeas]

11. Charges and convictions -- and very lil Corporate Media coverage

[MindPilot]

14. Seems very much like my first few days in the Navy

The people who handled the new recruits when they first got off the bus were pretty abusive; punching, kicking, pushing, screaming, smacking. Of course no-one realized that the people doing the abusing were recruits too, just a few more weeks along in boot camp.

The Company Commanders--what the navy called drill instructors--were pretty abusive too. I got knocked on my ass more than once.

So I don't think this is at all out of the ordinary.

[bloom]

17. makes me wonder

about my relative who had been in terrific shape and had to come home after a week because of a torn ligament.

He could have been trying to hard... or maybe not?


:freak:

[NightOwwl]

15. More often than not, the abused becomes the abuser.

[onager]

21. Former Marine D.I. here...

The rules on Marine recruit training have been in place since 1956, with modifications.

1956 was the year of the "Ribbon Creek Incident." At the Parris Island recruit depot, S/Sgt. Matt McKeon spent a lazy Sunday having a few drinks in the barracks. After dark, he decided to take his platoon on a surprise march thru the swamps. Something happened, it was never clear what, and 6 recruits drowned while crossing Ribbon Creek.

(Movie fans may remember that Jack Webb made a movie shortly after this incident, "The D.I.")

One of the biggest uproars occurred when I was a DI at San Diego in the 1970's. A recruit got hit in the head with a pugil stick and later died of his injuries in Balboa Naval Hospital.

As it turned out, the recruit was mentally sub-standard and should never have been enlisted. His recruiter helped him cheat on the entrance tests and eventually got nailed for it.

[NightOwwl]

24. How awful.

Some people just can't handle positions of power, and they end up crossing the line into abuse and sadism (kind of like this entire administration.)

[Miss Chybil]

25. Yep, they can yell all they want, but they're not allowed to touch you. nt

[Triana]

27. The Army Murdered my Stepbrother...

...he was a huge guy. They make them walk/march until they fall down. He couldn't get back up and the drill sgt rammed him in the chest with the butt of a rifle. Killed him. On the papers, they tried to say he was sick with some virus or some shit. However, his chest was broken, and bruised and his lungs collapsed.

My stepdad knew he was murdered but was so heartbroken that he couldn't endure the ordeal of suing the US gov't. Not sure he could have ever won, anyway. It would have taken years if not decades.

We couldn't even mention this when my stepdad was alive without him choking up and his eyes welling up in tears.

They murdered the boy.

Period. F*cking bastards.

[kath]

32. Wow, Triana, that's so awful.

My sympathies to you and your family.

[NightOwwl]

34. Oh my god.

I'm so sorry, Triana. :cry:

[Triana]

35. Thank you...

...this happened years ago so it's not recent. Still, when I think about it and that they did this and got away with it because there really is no practical way a citizen can sue the fed gov't or Army (or any way they would win) it makes me sick. And my stepdad - we just didn't discuss it around him.

They're murderers.

[lateo]

30. They can't do that...

Someone is going to get in trouble.

[matcom]

37. I did MY Basic At Knox

and didn't encounter abuse like this. however "cruel or abusive tricks." Vulgar or sexually explicit language took place all the time as well as some "questionable" disciplinary tactics.

nothing this blatant though

[funkybutt]

38. Thanks! I'd really like to hear from more people who went to boot camp

It's easy for us who have never experienced it to say what we think or what we thought it would be like.

[matcom]

42. its hell

24/7 hell. but you survive. basically you don't have time to even think about it. you just do it.

[Orsino]

43. Ft. Jackson (SC) '91

I was ten years older than a lot of the other recruits, so I was struggling to keep up in the physical side of training (though I could outrun many of them; thank heavens I was good at *something*).

I never saw any physical abuse, though there were stories and jokes about it. I don't believe there was any *widespread* problem like that, but the Army being what it is, I'm sure that abuses could have hidden in out-of-the-way corners. Generally, I was favorably impressed by my drills' examples, and that's the most motivating factor, I believe, in the long run.

The verbal barrage seemed to be motivating enough. Profanity was officially outlawed, but plenty of it slipped out--mostly for emphasis rather than as direct insults.

GI-speak has only ten verbs, and four of 'em are "fuck."

I kept a sense of humor, and was able to enjoy the training, to some crazy extent, even when it sucked the hardest. You can look at Basic as rigorous military discipline, I used to tell my squad-mates, or as a costume party where everyone just happened to have worn the same costume.

[oneighty]

39. Navy boot camp 1951

Never saw any abuse nor experienced any.

Years later Underwater Swimmers school five weeks or so of go go go run run run night surface swims, underwater swims.

Never any abuse.

Deep sea diving school was really tough to get through.We were there to learn. No fun and games. Serious business.

Never any abuse.

Same with EOD School.

Never any abuse.

We could never understand why or how abuse furthered ones training in other services. What would be the point other than sadism.

180

[Eloriel]

53. You nailed it. There IS no point other than sadism.

None whatsoever. And it doesn't build men, it builds other abusers.

[Squatch]

40. This is definitely the exception to the rule

I was the XO for a basic training battery at Ft Sill, Oklahoma and the S-4 for the 1st Engineer Brigade (in charge of OSUT and AIT at Ft Leonard Wood, MO) and have never seen nor encountered this.

In fact, our DI's at FT L Wood were instructed to refrain from swearing when the recruits stepped off the bus.

Now, Ranger school was another story.

[trogdor]

45. Thank you.

See my previous post entitled "Stress." I think it pretty much captures what it's like to be a drill sergeant, as much as a REMF like me could pick up from observation. It happens, the chain of command deals with it, and it usually doesn't make it to the press unless it's a particularly newsworthy incident of abuse or something. Since March '03, I'm sure the bar for newsworthiness has been lowered a bit.

I've seen drills come to the Reception Station with a whole vocabulary of substitute swear words, along with some rather creative narratives that sound like the TBS version of Full Metal Jacket. Where there's a will, there's a way.

[Karenina]

46. Kick!

:kick:

[Squatch]

47. I read your post. Very well said.

A small minority of DIs are alcoholics, etc, but the vast majority seem to enjoy their job.

The one thing that always suprised me, every time I saw it was how many recruits coming out of High School couldn't even do 10 pushups, or run 1/2 mile.

They would get off the bus on R day, and get dropped for something, only to quit after a few pushups, which, invariably drew the wrath of other DIs.

[Sgent]

48. My brother

Did MCRD in '96 (Marine Corp, San Diego) and according to him there was no physical contact at all. Verbal and pschological were a whole different issue.

He compares life events to it now... on a scale of 1 to bootcamp.