Posted on 04/10/2012 11:07:40 AM PDT by Brown Deer
Fraternities have a long history of being a refuge for homosexuals on college campuses around the nation.
I was going to put this matter to rest, having deferred to an agree to disagree reply re the University being sued. Somehow I think you have something there re homosexuality. At 14 years of age, I was enlisted in an Army Apprentice School in England. I have carried the memory of the tradition of bullying scared boys, away from home. Yet the feared older louts(so called soldiers) were pretty tame compared to the jokers who did this thing.
It was the fear of what they threatened caused an internal agony to me. It never happened luckily. I was hospitalized before they made their final foray. A husky American youth, my own age, was fighting an ingrowing abcess, the same year. We both survived, thanks to penicillin, and the surgical care. His on the ankle, mine on the shoulder. RIP Mickey Mantle.
Bye bye Army Apprentice Boys.
Now I think of it, the worst louts were always threatening sodomy. The most heinous offense in the British Army. Later I learned it was seven years jail- a civilian jail as a penalty. 1100 boys and no normal female early relationships available. Glad I got out. Maybe a lesson to be learned there. The sadism could be a substitute for repressed homosexual impulses.
By defeating the hazing tradition you also opted out of much of what makes group membership worth working for in the first place. Sort of like joining a football team and then refusing to let yourself be blocked or tackled with the ball.
This whole thread seems to be doing the same thing.
“new members of the Stool Pushers Union ?”
Some years ago in Ireland a doctor friend of mine called them ‘Dung Punchers’...however, I do not think this applies in this case.
Were you at the Apprentice School at Pennypot?
Who would raise children this insecure?
In first two weeks of Parris Island Boot Camp, he publicly had the shit kicked out of him by his drill instructor, and also saw another recruit die of heart failure right in front of him.
Did the fraternity thing in college for a few years. Don't have any special loyalty to the fraternity system, but it was fun. I never did anything nor had anything done to me that I couldn't tell my Mom about, so I was really never hazed. I wouldn't take any humiliating rituals from a khaki popped collar kid either, but nor would I take it from a 50 year old with a buzz cut.
People are different, as is their choice of associations.
I was at Beachley Camp, commonly called Chepstow. It was actually just across the Wye River in Gloucestershire. Three year apprenticeship and then eight years in the regular army. 1946. I was not given clue about the eight extra years. I got there the night the American boxer, Ike Williams of Trenton NJ knocked out the camp’s former physical training instructor, Ronnie James, in nine rounds. NBA lightweight world title.
I was stationed in Yorkshire, 1969-1974. Our base was at Menwith Hill and the Army Apprentice School was just a couple of miles from us.
So these kid being kept naked and taped together in the basement was the reason the fraternity is a good thing?
We rebuilt the deck and remodeled the bathrooms. Great bonding activity without the homo erotic crap.
Honestly, after the changes my class made, the fraternity has become a lot stronger. It is now one of the better and larger ones at Iowa State.
what year? What month? What platoon #? If you can't tell me, I call BS. You want to know why I call BS? Cause it is.
If a DI were to "publicly" kick the sh#t out of you, he'd be charged with assault. If someone died of "heart failure" in front of him and he was responsible for it, once again he'd be brought up on charges. Guess what, I've seen people get the sh#t kicked out of them in training....by other boots. I've seen men in sweats, raincoats and boots run with their rifle at port for MILES when they dropped their weapon or were needing some physical fitness encouragement. but this happened in private and out by the rifle range or off base..... I've heard of men falling off a deck of a ship by accident, heard of men in other platoons die of something... I never knew cause I didn't see the autopsy but it could have been heart failure, heart arrhythmia, potassium elevation, hypothermia, hyperthermia, dehydration etc.... gunshot, grenade accident, walking into tail rotors, falling out of buildings , falling off of ships, getting drunk and wrecking cars, getting in fights and on and on...
As for taking it from a 50 year old with a buzz cut. Brother you once again have no clue. Nothing personnel. Most of the ones I knew were in their mid 30's to early 40's. The Marine DIs in order to get to be a DI are usually the best, even if a few screw ups get through. We're talking about having high test scores, no discipline problems, no personnel problems and on and on. Their not trying to get you to join a group of guys to hang out, chase tail and drink beer (even though it happens). The DI is there to prepare you for war. To complete your assigned duty without excuse and basically to serve your country with honor. You are there to become a warrior ...... and a rifleman. period. It's a "fraternity" in the meaning of a bonding together for a common purpose. But a college frat and USMC are fraternities in that sense but most recruit platoons would have a very very hard time putting up with college frat boys if they were to meet up and say...."hey we're just like you, a fraternity"...hahahahahahaha.
I pretty sure my son won't be joining one unless he pays for it himself. I also don't think he'll join the other fraternity with the yellow footprints on the street.
My point was that these are two entirely different things. Being in a fraternity is a social club, whereas joining the military is something altogether different, as are the stakes. I'm sure Coast Guard OCS is quite a bit tougher than fraternity hazing too, and I'm sure the guys who've been through BUDs or the Fan Dance can tell stories that make Marine Boot Camp look like the Girl Scouts.
I'll just assume that the tough talking on your part is the Aggie side of you, and not the Marine. Most of the Marines I know don't go around bragging anonymously on the Internet, and the only times they've ever talked about their experience in the Crucible or other aspects of training or combat have come when I've asked them specifically about it.
I'll just assume that the tough talking on your part is the Aggie side of you, and not the Marine. Most of the Marines I know don't go around bragging anonymously on the Internet, and the only times they've ever talked about their experience in the Crucible or other aspects of training or combat have come when I've asked them specifically about it.
I agree with your point completely that frats and the military are different. Someone else was trying to equate training cycles to "hazing" or brutality in order to join or earn the right to be in the Marines.
As for the DI beating and "tough talk"...I was Not bragging. Just stating that "your friend" never got "beat up publicly" by a DI without charges being brought against him. Also that if a "DI had a boot die at his feet of heart failure" and he was the same beating DI that he'd either be in Leavenworth or greeting people at the airport as a TSA agent. I hate when these "war stories" involve Marines being sadistic or douche bags to each other. It chaps my rear.
As far as BUDs being tougher than what I went through. Probably, I frickin hate cold water, HATE IT. I got in it, I trained in it but I hated every single second of being cold and wet with sand everywhere. I was much more partial to heat and humidity and bugs. Just my preference, I don't know why. As far as "crucible". Well you're right, I wasn't tough enough to do that, I'm so old that I never went through "crucible". Had to do some gentle hiking and camping with some nice fellows on the Reaper. Cause Krulak hadn't thought of it yet
You seem to equate "hazing" and BUD's Hell Week or Crucible...That was my point as well. The training cycles of Hell Week, Crucible or even Counter-Guerilla Warfare School are all TRAINING and not a "ritual" to satisfy some sadist punk that is in a frat.
As far as the "tough talk". It's not that tough. Most Marines I know have "heard" of people dying, some have seen someone die and almost everyone that has gone through ITR or any additional schools have had the "bad examples" shoved in their faces as a way of making sure you...attach your line, watch what you're covering, or "thumb clip, pull pin, prepare to throw and throw.... then duck...hahahahaha.
Briefly a Staff Sergeant aroused his platoon of recruits on a night march. Six died from drowning. He had been drinking. One, General Lewis Puller (Chesty Puller) came in for the defense. Much was made of this and other statements etc. The Staff Sergeant was ruined career wise and served only three months brig. He was busted to Pvt and discharged. It was stated by General Puller that previously ten men had died on a course and nothing said. The press drove much of the case.
One may have one's opinions about this type of thing of course. I remember the "nine mile bash" in the British Army. When I did my "bash," I heard of some fools of Sergeants elsewhere, running a conscript hoisting the elbows, just to make sure everyone finished the course. He was collapsing. He died of heart failure, being an office clerk and portly in build.
No time for Sergeants indeed! (chuckle).
I remember reading about the incident when I was a teenager. It caused quite a stir throughout the country. My uncle was a Drill Instructor at Parris Island around that time. I did my “Squarebashing” at San Antonio, Texas. Air Force boot camp was really tame compared to the Marine Corps.
If you were in the British Army, my father fought along side some of you and your Gurkhas in Borneo as a "TDY" assignment before he went to Vietnam. He said they were some of the scariest men he's ever seen fight. hahahahahaha.. He just couldn't believe that these little guys were such tough little bastards and fearless. He also thought that the Brits were just Very Very professional. Coming from my dad those brits and gurkhis must have been some real carnivores.
He always thought that you all knew how to handle the guerillas better than we could because of the way you were allowed to fight and with the way you kept television and the press away from the action. I don't think a lot of people realize that the helicopter in jungle warfare was perfected by the Brits first and opened up a whole new way for our mobile infantry to conduct operations. Small world, huh?
Not out of line at all sir. My dad was there in 1956. My dad loved the Marines from a very early age till the day he died.
Interested to read of your dad and his experiences with the British Army. I know of only the too little publicized accounts telling of the dual operations in Burma, with Brigadier Orde Wingate. Vinegar Joe Stillwell was the American General, Burma was cleared of the wily Japanese, formidible foes indeed. A great effort, but not too well known. I was sorry to hear of the nit picking in Europe after the war though. That is another story.
My dad was a Dunkirk Veteran and also saw action. Faced the Panzers in Belgium 1940. Maternal grandad survived a court martial in WW1. Always joked about it. "Took French leave" he said. Got both sides attitude to the army myself. Not the best soldier, as a conscript, I muddled through 1950/1.
What I do mean to comment is that there is the stern disciplinarian, who commands respect from the recruit. There is the niggling devil who has a personal axe to grind. Hated by the common soldier. Name behind his back was a "bawstad". Too put it in a nutshell, was the statement barked out
"On Parade, On Parade. Off Parade,Off Parade".
The sergeant meant he was to be reckoned with on parade. Off parade he was an ok guy.
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