From: Scherrer, Tim (scherrert@missouri.edu)
Date: Tue Jun 28 2005 - 04:32:55 PDT
If you read the entire story, it makes a lot more sense. I've italicized the parts that were omitted from the mailing list:
FORT KNOX, Kentucky (AP) -- The recruits of Echo Company stumbled off the bus for basic training at Fort Knox to the screams of red-faced drill instructors.
That much was expected. But it got worse from there.
Echo Company's top drill instructor seized a recruit by the back of the neck and threw him to the ground. Other soldiers were poked, grabbed or cursed.
Once inside the barracks, Pvt. Jason Steenberger says, he was struck in the chest by the top D.I. and kicked "like a football." Andrew Soper, who has since left the Army, says he was slapped and punched in the chest by another drill instructor. Pvt. Adam Roster says he was hit in the back and slammed into a wall locker.
See the full story at http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/27/drill.sergeants.charge.ap/index.html
I've been a company commander of a basic training company at Ft Knox...in D-2-46. This incident probably occurred in either E-1-46 or E-2-46 just after they completed their ROTC mission.
If I had been there the drill sergeants would have gone down very quickly in my company as well. They broke the TRADOC regs and abused their soldiers. The US Army today doesn't beat people up physically to train them. Your goal is to keep the stress between the trainee and the task, not the trainee and the trainer. They should be in jail. This isn't the case of whiney kids today, but out of control people with authority.
Abuse like this is much like abuse within a family....it gets passed from generation to generation. Some of who got beat up by your drill sergeant may think this is really touchy feely, but I don't know anyone who was beating in to respecting a superior..other than respecting your ability to get beaten up by them.
Tim Scherrer
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