Hazing

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PaulGJ

5-Year Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2011
Messages
4
How severe is the hazing at the Air Force academy compared to the Naval Academy?
 
It is possible that s/he really doesn't understand BCT or Doolie year and is seeking clarification. A high school junior might not realize the negative connotation of using the term "hazing" in reference to life at the USAFA/USNA.
 
This could be a more beneficial question:

Could someone specify with examples of what crosses the line of actual hazing and "regular orders from the upper class men at the academies"?
 
There isn’t hazing at the academies. The have rules, that are strict at times, but nobody is getting hazed. All I know at AFA is that they have to do things like walk on the right side of the hallway, or on a line? not sure about that one, they carry their bags with their left hand, those kind of things (which may not be fully accurate, because I am not at the academy as my username states, so correct me if they aren’t).


If you want a real answer, do some searching on this forum, and on the internet, its not a difficult thing to find out if you spend a little time.
 
The answer to your question is simple. The severity of hazing at USAFA compared to USNA is the same - both service academies have zero hazing and neither institutions tolerate any hazing. Not sure where you are getting the idea that any service academies tolerate hazing.
 
The way I see it, you want to go into the military, so who cares how hard it can get. It is the military. You are an active role player in war and violence. You need to be ready to withstand some hardships. You want to go to the Academy? Well you need to be in an elite group of people. You will give up some aspects of normal life. Be prepared for some hardships in any of the academies. Some of the stuff that goes on could be considered hazing at some schools, but people at those schools aren't going to be fighting in wars and defending our country.
 
When you get to the Academy, you will probably think that everything that happens is hazing, but the longer I have been here (although hard to say right now), I can honestly say that there is a ton of thought that goes into training. Except in a few rare cases, the training is always meant to benefit you in some way (I still sometimes have trouble finding that exact purpose, but I know it will be worth it). Just as everyone is looking forward to recognition (as we should be), being recognized is not about the 3 day event in March, it is about the 9 months of training that we have been through. Without that training those 3 days would be worth nothing. Without hard work, there is no reward. So in short, there is no hazing, there is only training to earn a greater reward.

Later,

Brian
 
Actual hazing is very rare, and usually punished appropriately. What most people see as "hazing" is either very tough training or training where they don't understand the purpose.

Sometimes training programs' purposes are not explained well or connected well with the actual methods. These are usually where most complaints come from.


This explains part of things well, IMO.
Here's a story from the Army side. This is a commonality to all the military branches.

(Now LTC Friesen)
Author, Major Bo Friesen USMA 83 (15 Jun 99)

I'd like to chime in with my two cents on the 4th Class System, as I experienced it. My plebe year was during 79-80 and, although it was probably not as draconian as that of the more senior members of this forum, it appears to be considerably different from what exists today.

As I went through it, I did not understand how cutting a pie into nine equal pieces would help an officer lead soldiers into battle. The myriad of disjointed memorizations, ludicrous tasks and perpetual panic mode seemed to have very little to do with the profession of arms. I maintained this attitude throughout my upper class years and I was definitely not a flamer, although fairly stern and consistent. I kept this perspective as a junior officer ... right up to the moment I commanded a cavalry troop in the Gulf War.

One night, at around 0100, we conducted a passage of lines to assault an airfield. We had gone almost 60 hours without sleep and it was raining with a vengeance (yes, rain in the desert ... lots of it). Our own artillery was falling short and landing amongst us, one of my platoon leaders was heading off in a tangent to the direction he should have been following, the squadron main body was drifting too far north, my driver was heading straight for a ravine, a tank in my 4th platoon threw a track, we found ourselves in the middle of one of our own DPICM minefields, the objective was spotted on our right flank (instead of in front of us, where it should have been), almost no maps existed for our area of operations, my boss was perpetually screaming for me to change to his frequency (an impossibility with the wonderfully designed, single-transmitter command tanks), a half dozen spot reports were coming in from my troops (all critical), my intel NCO had a critical update, my X!
O had a critical update, my ops NCO had a critical update, my 1SG had a critical update, my gunner had spotted dismounts, the regimental commander was forward with us adding his own personal guidance, visibility was almost zero, there was a suspected use of chemical weapons, regimental S-2 reported 500 heavily armed Republican Guards on our objective (later determined to be a squad of American engineers), and I had a moderate to severe case of dysentery. (... A run-on sentence, I know, but then again it was a run-on night.)

It was during this little slice of heaven (of all places) that the 4thClass System was illuminated to me in all its glory. Its goal was not harassment, ridicule, or punishment. Its goal was to train the neural network to deal with an overwhelming amount of disjointed information, quickly process that information, categorize it, and make rapid, sound decisions. At that moment, I would have gladly given a month's pay to the genius who devised the 4th Class System. It provided me with a priceless gift to sort the significant from the insignificant and do my job in a much better fashion. From my perspective, THAT is the rationale behind the system. It trains your brain in a non-lethal environment to sort through the mess, bring some order to it, and continue functioning.

It is an extremely nasty world out there, and part of the academy's mission is to train graduates to survive and excel in that world. We are not doing the graduates any favors by sugarcoating things and putting a happy face on everything. There is still plenty of unadulterated evil, brute force, and chaos to go around. Pretending it isn't there will not make it go away. I sincerely hope that there are enough qualified people to deal with the future chaos and brute force quickly and effectively enough to protect our interests and keep it off our shores. Don't dismiss the 4th Class System as an archaic anachronism. I have found it to be one of the most valuable training programs I have ever undergone.

Just my 2 cents ...
Bo Friesen
Major U. S. Army
USMA 83
Click to expand...
 
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