<p>I have posted this before, but it gives an interesting perspective and reinforces the difficulty of finding the right balance. </p>
<p>Why</a> trivia</p>
<p>
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For what it is worth, West Point replaced the 4th class system (which relied on "hazing") with the 4 class system (cadet leader development system) years ago. This is not new
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</p>
<p>This and the transition is described in the book "Duty First" by Ed Ruggero.
Both books to which I referred may be found at Amazon.com:</a> Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more.</p>
<p>Ann's post also reminded me of a discussion I had with one of our JROTC instructors this summer. He was a drill sergeant for many years in the Air Force. He indicated there are proven psychological studies behind all military training methods, and that while they may seem extreme and over the top to us as civilians, there are reasons for everything they do. They are proven to work and do produce leaders who can think and act quickly in life and death situations. </p>
<p>The link Ann posted demonstrates this principle very well!</p>
<p>ok......believe me, I understand the stance that putting people in stressful situations can and does teach them to work effectivly under pressure. And trust me, I was a beast cadre member, that atmosphere does still exist here, to a point. But, does it really make sense to take ten minutes to scream at a plebe because his gig line is slightly off, or is there a point at which the correction becomes counter productive. Making underclassmen perform to standard in everything they do (which is still allowed and encouraged) is stressful enough.....do we really think that screaming at them is going to do anything other than make them simply turn off and ignore the message at the core of the "hazing"? I know that for me yelling and screaming was easy to deal with, because you didnt have to actually do anything, it was when I was simply forced to be the standard that life was hard, and ensuring that plebes maintain the standard still occurs today, just in a more effective manner for both leaders and followers.</p>
<p>Wait what? Why would an upperclassman want to "drop" a plebe in the hallways?</p>
<p>In high school if someone assaulted me I would do something to counter/protect myself and control the attacker and it would be considered self defense.</p>
<p>Unfortunately when you are doing pushups it is hard to call someone who is doing them with you an attacker...</p>
<p>Moritsuna,</p>
<p>"Dropping" a plebe just means that the upperclassmen has assigned pushups for an infraction. The plebes are not physically assaulted in any way.</p>
<p>Having some time to refelct upon my USMA experience, I find this interesting now that I've been a PL for 15 months now and dont have all the worries I had as a Cadet (much different worries now). Every class says the class after them has it easier, and in some cases, this is true, because every classes experience is different. I know I felt that way with the classes of 07, 08, and 09 when I was there, and I know that 03, 04, and 05 felt that way about us. Every year there is some horrible limit on the corrections that can be done to plebes that send upperclassmen into a roar (I had an instructor, class of 93, tell us that when the officially ended the 4th class system when he was a cadet, he verbally told his TAC that this place made him physically ill and he didnt want to be part of it anymore). The point is, everyone always thinks someone is getting over.
However, I do think there is a great deal of value in the yelling and the putting people under more stress than they can take. That trains you to be a better leader when things get bad, when bullets start to fly, and when people get hurt. You need to be able to deal with horrible, horrible things, not letting them distract you, and focus on what needs to be done at hand. Having experienced Beast, you learn some of that, even though it may not be the best method, it works for the resources available at USMA. Putting people under stress brings out the best and worst of them; one needs not look further than about the 5th week of any given Ranger School class to realize that people under stress show their true colors. Beast cant use the Ranger School model, they cant take away THAT much food and sleep, so there are other means to do similar things, mainly creating a stressful environment which is multiplied in effectiveness when you yell at people. Its been the military's training model for dozens of years (up until recently), and it's worked.
That being said, it does not teach good leadership. I dont think any reasonable USMA grad ever walked away from graduation and thought, 'i'll treat my platoon like it were beast." That's just stupid. However, if all you did at USMA was yell at people to get them to do what you wanted, you missed the core of leadership, by definition, which is to influence others to achieve a common goal. Yelling it great fro plebes, it teaches them how to deal with stress, because there will be a time when they have to do so, but it isnt so good for upperclassmen, because its a cop out of having to actually learn how to influence others.
As always, its a difficult balance, but I do fear that we, as an Army, have to be careful not to get too far away from the basic standards and discipline that we're always taught, faught, and won with. I do feel that some of the changes made to training, army wide, in the last decade have been detrimental to the mission.
My two cents.</p>
<p>Screamingeagle,</p>
<p>Excellent post. Although I have my own opinions on the topic of hazing, when trying to assess the pros and cons of hazing, I tend to defer to the opinions of those people that have both directly experienced it, and second, have had some time pass since the hazing to reflect on its relative merits. </p>
<p>With the qualifier that I lack any first hand experience on hazing at the academies, I am concerned that the trend in our academies (and other parts of our military) is to train our military personnel to be more 'civilized' in their approach to warfare against our enemies and to leadership within our military. </p>
<p>Your initial response might be:"How could becoming more civilized be a bad thing?" </p>
<p>It's because of my belief that the use of military force requires an intentional step back from civilized behavior and a step into uncivilized warrior behavior. Most wars come to an end because one side, or both, decide they can't tolerate the pain any longer. Not because they've come to an agreement with their enemy.</p>
<p>While many have expressed concern about our Nation's capacity/willingness to incur pain in pursuit of it's international military missions, I am equally concerned about our nation's capacity and willingness to inflict sufficient pain to force our enemies to capitulate.</p>
<p>Unforturnately, there are still a number of powerful, competing nations are seeking hegemony not harmony. I pray every day that they will behave in a civlized manner in the coming decades. But I'm not hopeful of it happening.</p>
<p>Yup, "War is Hell" for a reason.</p>
<p>getting dropped in the hallways? haha, happens every day here at usafa. where we got beat for most of beast actually, in our hallways.</p>
<p>Don'ty feel special HNeedle. It happens at all the SAs.</p>
<p>i've heard of west point being a piece of cake these days. Sure the classes are more rigorious and demanding then most college institutions, but compared to a real military college like VMI who still tries to uphold its traditional foundation in creating good and obedient officers in the future, WP is a joke to prepare you for what military life could be like.</p>
<p>
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WP is a joke to prepare you for what military life could be like.
[/quote]
Oh my, that was profound.</p>
<p>^ Slight exaggeration but nonetheless not to far from the truth from what I've heard and experienced. Although West Point brings out the brightest officers, I feel like some of these young men and women would crumble under pressure from a fire fight in Iraq or any other place. WP doesn't even strain for crying outloud. Beautiful institution and history though.</p>
<p>wow, in my experience, WP prepares officers just fine for firefights, IED detonations, massive head trauma, bi-lateral amputations, government development, route security, raids, ambushes, information operations, logistics, intelligence, and whatever else is asked of its graduates. But you know what else? so does an ROTC program like BC or Texas, which contains no real military experience besides their MS classes. What WP offers that other schools do not is a complete immerision in an environment designed to build ethics and character. You mention VMI, which is another great school with a great history, yet the VMI cadets I interracted with while a cadet expressed utter disgust that the First Captain at West Point was a female. Generalizations are a poor thing to get into the habit of forming, so before I go and make the assumption based on my limited interaction with VMI cadets that that school is living 20 years in the past, you might want to look into your own prejudice and bias and realize that yelling, bracing, and hazing are not the only means to make and officer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Envy (and/or ignorance) is an amazing thing. I wonder how many people attend WP solely due to the reason that they were unable to gain admission to VMI. Kinda like people flunking out of their history major and being forced to enroll in the engineering school. </p>
<p>ScreamingEagle, good point. At one time, due to their archaic prejudices, there was a move afoot not to allow VMI grads to be commissioned in the US Navy.</p>
<p>Good post Screaming Eagle: USMA truly produces outstanding officers and will continue to do so long into the future. It's too bad that there are relatively unprofessional postings from all sorts of "experts" out there from all kinds of backgrounds whether they are from VMI or even graduates from Navy 39 years ago who seem to mostly revel in knocking fine schools pretty much because they are either unschooled, ignorant, incapable of appreciating that there are different ways to achieve an end, or because they were drinking the night before.
Keep your head down while you are in the SandBox. Hooah!</p>
<p>Good posts Screaming Eagle and USNA69. Sounds like just another case of sour grapes....</p>
<p>I haven't had that good of a laugh in weeks----</p>