Comments | ontd_political: Because this shouldn't be forgotten

apis_cerana in ontd_political

Because this shouldn't be forgotten

Jan 06, 2012 12:52

Private Chen’s Family Learns More About Hazing by Fellow G.I.’s

The officers in command of the battalion of Pvt. Danny Chen, who the Army says committed suicide in Afghanistan in October after being hazed by fellow soldiers, were aware of the harsh treatment he had repeatedly received, his family said Thursday ( Read more... )

race / racism, afghanistan, asian people, military, fuckery

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

erunamiryene January 6 2012, 19:36:58 UTC

Where. The. Fuck. Was. The. Parent. Command?

Every single unit falls under another unit. How the fuck was this kept that fucking silent the whole fucking time?

TBH, I'm still beyond disappointed that NO ONE ELSE IN HIS FUCKING UNIT reported this to ANYONE ELSE outside their chain. If your chain of command is fucked, you go to the next higher command. Period. They start teaching you that shit in boot camp.

d00ditsemily January 6 2012, 21:43:08 UTC

A lot of units will sweep it under the rug. When my husband was deployed a NCO beat up a lower enlisted guy and it was caught on tape. So they moved the NCO and swept it under the rug because he was about to get out in 2 years and they didn't want him to lose his retirement (yes they still let him walk around with a loaded gun). On my husband's units fb page someone posted about officers raping enlisted women and how it was swept under the rug, and then the unit totally ignored it and deleted the comment.

erunamiryene January 6 2012, 21:45:49 UTC

I know, but ... if your unit isn't dealing with it, you're within your legal rights (even within the military) to go to the next higher command. That's why I went to the 2d MHG instead of my unit with my discrimination issue, because it was company commanding officers causing the problem in my unit.

Then again, IDK, procedures could differ between the Army and the Corps.

There are just so many points of failure in this story, it boggles my mind.

d00ditsemily January 6 2012, 21:54:22 UTC

You're right, but I think a lot of people are just scared of how they will be treated, where their career with go, etc. if they go higher and nothing happens.

erunamiryene January 6 2012, 22:04:02 UTC

There's that, too. By the time my whole Iraq thing happened, I just didn't give a shit anymore ( ... )

rayiroth January 8 2012, 16:24:52 UTC

You know how if you are bullied enough and you are reminded by the people who are supposed to be on your side and who are supposed to be for you demands that you are not worthy of being treated like a person, and you start to believe it after a while? Yeah.

In a way it's the same mentality as why people don't report outside of their family about their family abuse.

kira_snugz January 8 2012, 07:40:20 UTC

i think no one in his unit spoke up because of how they were *all* involved. even if they weren't actively partaking in the bullying, they witnessed it and they didn't* say one thing to the people who have been charged. theres a lot of fear and guilt that cycle around shit like this mostly in the "why didn't you *do* something?!?!" range.

and especially when officers are involved (at least in the caf) it used to be practice to hang the non commissioned out in the wind. the military puts 30 - 40 thousand dollars into training each officer(not counting most signing bonuses). its a shitty horrible practice that is being 'phased out', but i can think of... 5 times its happened offhand

it can also turn into "i didn't speak up because no one else spoke up, and i didn't want to be next"

*or at least we havn't heard that any of them said anything to those who were being asshats

Back to all threads