[Zuleika Dobson reference], I guess.
Maybe there are some all-felon enlisted units looking for officers who are their peers.
I love the "w00t! morale-building" language still coming out from those in charge.
Surely putting a heavy metal object in a pillow-case and hitting someone in the head with it is a some kind of serious felony, right?
Probably just an Anchorman tribute to the kids these days.
The War Nerd had a good bit on his podcast the other day about how Army institutions tend to select for jocks, which is a problem because jock personalities don't map well to the skills needed for counter-insurgency. The odd ducks get weeded out by the process, and the result is a lack of creativity at the leadership level.
He was making the point in relation to how going through Ranger School is basically a requirement for becoming a two star general, but it seems the same pathology is also at work at West Point.
We should try like during the Civil War and give high command to random alcoholics from Ohio.
Speaking of jocks, they are setting up the Quiddich field at Robber Baron U.
They aren't that elusive. They run with a broom in their crotch.
7: If we're doing that, we should also institute a requirement for extravagant facial hair for all ranks above major.
Implementing this for female officers may require some flexibility.
The whole business seemed kind of bizarre to me, in this day and age, especially when the article references Congress having hearings about hazing at West Point as far back as 1902 or whatever -- granted, this isn't precisely hazing, but it still seems awfully prejudicial to compliance with the UCMJ and what not.
Those Kevlar helmets are not particularly lightweight, and they've got a lot of thin edges on them -- you could probably put a pretty fatal dent in someone's skull with one in a pillowcase.
Anyway, yeah, the whole thing sounded way too much like some horror story from the Rooshian Army or something.
The Naval Academy's version is vastly superior. Go, Navy! USA! USA!
13: Yeah, I was thinking "Why can't they do something nice and actually concerned with team-building and camaraderie like the pole-climbing deal at Annapolis?" That first shot from the link ought to be the cover of some very serious cultural studies tome about whiteness and masculinity.
When I was in college, we beat the West Point Orienteering team 2 years running. Getting beaten at one of their core skills by a bunch of dirty fucking hippies must have hurt.
Why do I feel like if this happened in China we'd be reading a slate article about about how fucked up the inscrutable Oriental commies are, and this is a sign they're probably planning on invading South Korea or something.
We should try like during the Civil War and give high command to random alcoholics from Ohio.
Random alcoholics from Ohio would get drunk and invade Alaska to restore the name of Mt. McThingummy. Probably not a good idea.
I thought "Seward's Folly" was a dick joke.
This plus the whole CLOACA incident is shaking my probably misguided faith in West Point as a basically excellent school and the home of the remnants of our sane, cautious, intellectual military tradition.
19 Same here. Quickly entering laughingstock territory.
I'm mostly just jealous that I never thought to make a bird-orifice joke in a journal.
Plenty of holes in the sea, Mobes.
Others stumbled to a medical area set up beside the fracas.
So, this was expected. A medical area for a pillow fight?
"My plebe was knocked unconscious and immediately began fighting when he came to," an unnamed upperclassman, who was apparently observing from the sidelines, wrote on the social media forum Yik Yak. "I was so proud I could cry."
From blowing off steam to a test of toughness and a source of pride. The distance isn't far. The cadet quoted at the end does seem to have learned something.
Pillow fight as a test of toughness. Ur doing it wrong.
Pillow fight as showing that ANYTHING can be weaponized.
What about the parts of the bird between the feathers and the cloaca? I guess that's a food safety issue.
I don't think you can have a taint and a cloaca.
This is a pretty good academic trolling of West Point culture.
Wow, I had not heard of the CLOACA incident.
The second quote in 24 probably sums up the problem. "Really willing to fight" and "never gives up the fight" are key virtues in some contexts (the one I've heard of is prison fights, where from what I know a willingness to fight to the end is the key to getting respect, not necessarily the winning of the fight). But honoring it too much without enforcing safety rules pretty seriously/having authorities break up fights/etc. is basically a guarantee of regular/large scale injuries.
The part of the article I found amazing was, in reference to an earlier, similar incident:
During the first winter storm of the year, Air Force freshmen try to throw their cadet leaders into the snow. But in 2012 the snowball fight turned into a brawl, and 27 cadets were treated for concussions, cuts, broken bones and a bite wound.
The Air Force did not punish any cadets at the time, choosing to treat the episode as what a spokesman called "a teachable moment."
Clearly either this person has a different idea of what the phrase "teaching moment" means, or the cadets at West Point did in fact learn the relevant lesson.
31: From the quick description of the book on that page:
German officer candidates learned that in war everything is possible and a war of extermination acceptable. For American officers, raised in a democracy, certain boundaries could never be crossed. This work for the first time clearly explains the lack of audacity of many high ranking American officers during World War II, as well as the reason why so many German officers became perpetrators or accomplices of war crimes and atrocities or remained bystanders without speaking up. Those American officers who became outstanding leaders in World War II did so not so much because of their military education, but despite it.
32: You should carefully read everything I link to.
Also, don't watch Scary Movie 5. It's horrible.
34: sounds fairly believable, actually. If you have a tight focus on the operational level (deformation professionel of the Wehrmacht officer corps) and you value unorthodox behaviour as long as it helps win, you will get both stunningly imaginative victories and atrocities. Think the main antagonist in "Use of Weapons". Why else are guerrilla armies almost without exception crueller and more brutal than their regular opponents? Because they have to be imaginative and unorthodox and use everything as a weapon.
MHPH > it's rather more subtle; the culture of German officer military training was surprisingly flexible and discursive compared to the American model of drumming in doctrine and permitting no answers not in accordance with it - however, it did encourage a view that military necessity made most things permissible - there's an interesting direction in quite a few modern books on the Wehrmacht that this concept made it very susceptible to collaboration with policies of extermination.
39, 40: Indeed, imagine what Rommel could have done with just 2 or 3 more Wayans brothers!
Teachable moment? "Attention cadets: fists and blunt weapons let you stay anonymous, but they can identify you from bite marks using dental records."
39: for example one of Rommels innovations in France, IIRC, was using ambulances as recce vehicles - very imaginative and effective, but also a war crime. He was also a great believer in recce by fire, a tactic whose drawbacks with regard to atrocities are too obvious to describe.
It's "Wehrmacht," not "Snugglemacht."
Because nobody listens to me.
The Snugglemacht sounds like some kind of horrible goofy stupid twee Brooklyn club for hipster parents. Not worse than Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union I guess but not great either.
"The story omits any motivation."
Surely the people in the story proudly describing their injuries are describing the motivation: it's a test of fortitude (and yes, a form of hazing) that the freshmen are proud and motivated to withstand. Same reason the powers that be evidently seem to be unconcerned.
(Another motivation is that -- from the video mentioned but AFAICS not linked in the article -- one could see how the whole exercise could look really hugely fun if it weren't for the occasional deadly weapon thrown in the mix.)
It's all fun until somebody puts an eye out.