Welcome home and thanks for your service.
Semper Fi!
Doc
Etiam non princeps sed usque ad genua, Principis Pacis!
Posted on 12/22/2011 7:18:59 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
NEW YORK (AP) - Even before the Army sent him to Afghanistan, supporters say, Pvt. Daniel Chen was fighting a personal war.
[snip]
Then he was sent overseas, and the hazing began: Soldiers dragged him across a floor, pelted him with stones and forced him to hold liquid in his mouth while hanging upside down, according to diary entries and other accounts cited by a community activist.
On Oct. 3, the 19-year-old Chen was found dead in a guardhouse in Afghanistan with what the Army said was apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(Excerpt) Read more at gopusa.com ...
He volunteered to serve his country.
Hope his tormentors get it good.
There’s hazing going on in the military?
Terrible
Why weren’t the officers aware of this? Why didn’t they put a stop to it?
Somehow, I think there's more to this story than meets the eye
These kinds of stories fit the media ‘bullying’ story mold today.
Sadly this happens sometimes, and has happened in previous wars.
But maybe some of this is related to todays youth being raised in single parent homes without any family values?
“cited by a community activist.
Somehow, I think there’s more to this story than meets the eye”
Agreed - and I hope there’s a BUNCH more if the prosecution thinks it’s going to be able to prove BRD an “involuntary manslaughter” charge for the victim’s self-inflicted gunshot wound. Playing armchair SJA here, but sounds like somebody in the JAG office is trying to get creative and “send a message” - never a good idea, and usually means somebody’s serving his/her own agenda. Of course, the commander has to actually prefer the charge, which means the commander approves of the charge and spec.
Colonel, USAFR
FWIW, this is just the way the Russian army works, and has always worked.
Newbies are slaves to the old soldiers and are treated as such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina
But our system ought to be better. As always when such things happen, the responsibility falls (or should) on the officers in charge.
Yeah, it’s kind of difficult to really comment without more info, and people have always been cruel, especially kids and young people (that is some of them) but I think there are growing numbers who have very little compassion for others.
In addition, it’s not surprising if you watch what passes for entertainment. Look at how much other people’s humiliation is used as a tool to entertain. Why would we expect kids raised on that NOT to see it has perfectly ok, especially if the adults in their lives are not giving them a good moral compass? And, instead, the media wails about bullying, but I have yet to hear them implicate themselves or the trash tv they fill kids heads with.
Etiam non princeps sed usque ad genua, Principis Pacis!
From there, I went to Okinawa (Camp Haig & Camp Sukiran), then Vietnam (Charlie Med, DaNang), Parris Island (my shore duty, for 365 days, to the day!), and back in-country at Charlie Med, then a shortened tour and a quick out (at Long Beach) because I quit drinking their KoolAid.
Welcome home guys, and thanks for your service.
Oops...Haig should be Hague (3rdMarDiv HQ)
This whole story is odd.When I was in the AF 35 years ago there were tons of Asian Americans..especially officers, as many of them were college educated.
This is a sad tragedy and if true they need to throw the book at them
Bullying has gone one since the dawn of man but I never know of anyone in my school or shortly after killing themselves over it. We're raising mamsy pamsy kids these days with all this PC where there are no winner or loser teams in youth sports and mommy is there to save them if someone looks at them funny or the msm is all over it if the school tells them a t-shirt isn't appropriate, whaaaa! Even our leaders have lost their cajones. I'm not condoning the bullies, but our children need to learn to stand up for themselves.
Need to know more before judging this.
There was bullying in my school, too. If you gave in to it, then you were screwed.
One of the worst bullies was in my room, insulting me past bearing. So, I took the same recourse I had in second grade with a bully—I punched him in the belly.
This time, however, he was much bigger than I was, and he punched me back in the eye, knocking me out for a few minutes.
Nevertheless, it solved the problem, and I was never bullied by him again. When teachers asked me why I had a black eye, I gave them the usual explanation—I had walked into a doorknob by accident.
One of the purposes of basic training is to weed out the weak guys. Possibly Chen should have been weeded out—depending on what the real story was. Or transferred to another unit.
Seems like they're being taught that the government can and will protect them from being bullied, and that they don't need and shouldn't even attempt to learn how to do that for themselves.
Isn’t this the one who kept falling asleep on guard duty?
You ‘Nam guys are the best...I was a kid when that was going on, and had two older cousins there (one Army SF, one Marine).
Welcome home, thank you, and God bless you always.
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