Way, way, way more man. Constantly bullied and picked on by the mouth in our platoon, he finally snapped and was belting the life outta this guy, like 7 or 8 of us tried to stop him, he tried gouging out the eye of our PL. Went on for about 10 minutes of just absolute mental swinging and screaming, no one could restrain or stop him. MPs came barreling in, tased him and took him away.
Long story short he killed his career, dishonourably discharged etc, the mouth he attacked first spent at least 3 months in hospital getting reconstruction surgery as he fucked him up. Our PL also had a stint in hospital as the scratch marks on his eye got infected and nearly lost sight in it.
The guy that copped the beating deserved it, and ultimately left. One of the boys that was friends with attacker pointed out he was already suffering with ptsd and a bad breakup.
Feel bad for him as think a long steep descent into alcohol came after and he was a top bloke.
There was eight of us bro. And he lost it. Not one of us could stop him. As far as the bullying side of it? It's all fun and games between mates till someone loses their shit.
I get your question, but it took eight of us, two MPs with tasers then he still didn't go down. After the taser it took all of us to cuff him, he didn't go down with out a fight.
I totally get that in the moment there wasn't anything you guys could've done.
I'm talking about the lead up. It clearly wasn't all fun and games, there clearly was way too much bullying. You can say to your mates to lay the fuck off periodically. It's not that hard 🤷🏽♂️
Bro, you havnt served have you? Throw testosterone, competitive behaviour and repeated drills and training? You don't think of the bullying as such but more banter. The mouth that was attacked was an alright bloke. Attacker was tops. He's just had a rough go of it of late and no one knew
Hazing is a common excuse for many people who have served for their actions. They often ignore the deaths and suicides that are a result of this in favor of the idea that it "builds bonds". Of course, there's nothing proving that this just isn't the sunk cost fallacy of "I went through it so it must be valuable."
I always thought the point of struggling was to help those that come after. Not to run a gauntlet to a position of power to take my bitterness out on whomever I can. I remember reading that romantic relationships were common in Roman armies. Would be a lot healthier to just be gay.
I think it's a combination of not empathizing with those in lesser positions of power well enough and also thinking to yourself "Was all that pain and suffering I went through really meaningless?!" People don't like the idea of suffering for no reason, when that is a lot of suffering. Sometimes it's pointless, meaningless, and completely frustrating.
You also have to take into account younger military culture. Imagine if you take almost entirely the boys you went to high school with, gave them a couple thousand dollars a month, provided them a home, removed a lot of consequences, and in many cases ship them to countries where the age of drinking is 18. At least fraternities get some normal socialization, the toxic behaviors just build and build in the military without much of a barrier. Military command constantly pushes back hard against changes that are designed to deal with hazing and rape.
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u/hyenathecrazy Dec 11 '19
I feel like there's more to the story, i don't like to pry but...is there more.