December 05, 2018

There Really Is No Place For Hazing In A Professional Military

By: Kayla M. Williams

The vigorous Twitter response to the recent piece “There’s A Reason For All That Hazing And Ass-Chewing, And We Shouldn’t Ignore It” highlighted a need to disentangle a few types of unprofessional behavior that seem to be getting conflated in discussions and also to answer Tom’s question about how widespread support of hazing is in the military.

There’s been a push toward increased professionalism in the military underway for quite some time. It’s been accompanied by grousing from both those currently serving and veterans. Some of this is typical “back in my day” grumbling of the type I heard from my drill sergeants, asserting that we had it easier than they had — which I began saying myself when rumors of stress cards in Army BCT began flying less than five years later. Behaviors targeted for elimination include hazing, bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault – which have distinct definitions but could include overlapping components. Teasing them apart is important.

Read the full article in Task & Purpose.

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