Thoughts or Stories on Hazing?

[georged]

I remember walking the line to get my stripes pinned by the DI's out of boot camp, but had no problem with subsequent ones. The guys I worked with daily were the the only occupants of the BEQ at my duty station, and there was a boxing tournament in the grassy courtyard of the BEQ every month or so. And I was the top boxing dog for the entire time I was there.

Translated? All anyone felt like giving me was a ceremonial pop to attach any new stripe I might earn, cuz they knew what goes around comes around and payback would be a bitch if they wanted to "go there".

 

[WhiteCrown]

Can somebody get me an ID ten-T form?

 

[captainsousie]

Can somebody get me an ID ten-T form?

Only if a PICNIC error has occurred.

 

[mortonbriar]

Hazing just feels wrong when you work by and for yourself...but I still go there sometimes.

 

[Zero]

Can somebody get me an ID ten-T form?

ID 10-T ( IDIOT) Form, ha. Or, could someone go to supply and get some batteries for the chem lights and pick up a box of grid squares for the map reading class. Oh, don't forget to grab a henwhey. "What's a hen weigh?" about 5 pounds.

 

[Streeper541]

The Canadians have been hazing me for months... I'm getting used to it.

 

[olkofri]

I shouldn't be surprised that this sort of thing would happen at a med school, but I was. Wondering how you knew such things might be in the offing (not doubting you, just wondering if there was scuttlebut).

A bit there was, yes. But I got my intelligence from a classmate that had dropped out a year earlier only to return and join my class. Poor guy went through the thing twice.

 

[Seeleybc1]

My opinion is, like many other controversial topics, there’s a fine line between right and wrong, acceptable and not.
Depening on who you ask and what their personal experience was I’d say you’d get a lot of answers and opinions on it. Tough to generalize. The rite of passage experience I’ve been a part of, and it was positive.
Being hurtful and damaging should be pretty obvious though, and is no bueno

 

[RustiePyles CPG]

I was actually at a command that was that was investigated for hazing, some people got in pretty serious trouble. It came about because a few to many sailors were "hazed" to the point of injury. While I was never injured, I was certainly hazed, at times to a point that I found extreme and I'm pretty thick skinned. Hazing has always been apart of Navy culture and its often done at a command level with oversight to insure it doesn't affect mission readiness, this kind of hazing can have many benefits, from ceremonial status advancement that encourages participation to unit bonding and hierarchical structure building. It's when hazing is done in secret and administered by those only wishing to exert dominance over others that it gets dangerous real quick.

It was at one time fairly common for Snipes (engineering rates) in the Navy to haze by lashing the new guy to a stanchion in the engine room and sticking a grease gun in his backside and pumping it full of grease. Now I'm not sure if you're familiar with what kind of pressures an industrial grease gun can produce, but it's plenty sufficient to to rupture a person's internal organs with just a few pumps. Several sailors died from this and the navy finally put a stop to it. That kind of stuff does not benefit anyone, it does not bond anyone, it's just rape. It's sole purpose was to exert dominance over another person.

 

[OverMountain]

The last time I was promoted in the Army, I was tackled to the dirty hangar floor, roughed up by a bunch of junior enlisted hyped up on Red Bull and nicotine, duct taped, dragged under the emergency shower and doused by my new bride who was also in attendance.

I was also gifted a leopard print Liberator cushion complete with Troop patch sewn carefully onto each side.

If that was hazing, I’d like to do it all over again.

 

[jguss]

I remember walking the line to get my stripes pinned by the DI's out of boot camp, but had no problem with subsequent ones. The guys I worked with daily were the the only occupants of the BEQ at my duty station, and there was a boxing tournament in the grassy courtyard of the BEQ every month or so. And I was the top boxing dog for the entire time I was there.

Translated? All anyone felt like giving me was a ceremonial pop to attach any new stripe I might earn, cuz they knew what goes around comes around and payback would be a bitch if they wanted to "go there".

A nice example of “what goes around comes around…sometimes with interest”

 

[jguss]

...nobody really likes you anyways

Now you sound exactly like my mom.

 

[woodsroad]

Whenever I'm in delicate company and I come out with something that garners a prolonged silent stare of disbelief, I always say "Just ignore me. That's what my mother always did".

 

[bullet08]

Don't have a problem with hazing. But there are too many that's been done wrong. My generation of S. Koreans were routinely beaten up by teachers on daily bases. Beaten with fist, kick, broom sticks till bleeding like a pig was normal. Of course, those who stayed in Korea gets double portion in each new grade and.. Wait for it.. ROK military. Why the ROK army has that tough reputation? They fear their teachers, COs, police more than VCs and any enemies. But, that's being changed. The kids are weaker, not disciplined and generally cry babies. Not saying past was okay. But some form of toughing up kids are OK.

 

[telescopes]

Hazing and initiation are in my mind two different things.

 

[warren]

I agree. But, hazing is often a part of an initiation. Very often as part and parcel of a rite of passage into some brotherhood or sisterhood.

 

[telescopes]

Initiation is a rite of passage. It has meaning and is a part of an allegorical journey whose end point upliffs and provides a context for the recipient. Hazing is a good time at the expense of someone else. Even mild hazing, like having the new hire whose picking up trash at a park be sent out to count snipe eggs can be questionable if the intent is to be abusive.

 

[telescopes]

I agree. But, hazing is often a part of an initiation. Very often as part and parcel of a rite of passage into some brotherhood or sisterhood.

I think hazing, if the end result is that the person being hazed can laugh at the practice as well does have a place in creating a brotherhood. But the line between destructive hazing and silly bonding behavior can get rather narrow. For instance, a group of guys all insist that the tobacco they are smoking is the absolute best. A newbie is given some - but what they don’t know is that it is 100% Latakia. Is that funny. It could be. I think it would be, but soaking it in shit unbeknownst to the smoker would be over the line.

 

[mortonbriar]

My dad has a story of him as a 19 year old in a pub, and a big aggressive guy wet a coin and stuck it to my dads forehead, and asked him to shake it off by smacking the back of his head. Of course the coin was not really there, but the wet patch felt like it was. My dad reflects on how this was equally as funny for him getting tricked as it was for the perpetrator. The guy bought him a beer for being a good sport. I guess if this guy tried the trick on the wrong person, or in the wrong moment it could have a really negative outcome for one or both parties. I don't think you can put up a 'NO HAZING IN THE WORKPLACE' sign because life is just not that black and white. My dad reflects so fondly on that experience, he pulls the story out every 5 years or so, and it was obviously a part of his life journey, and development as a young adult.