Aside from being a long-haired hippy in high school, one of the reasons I did not go to a service academy is because of the stories I heard about the hazing that went on to the first-year students by the older students. Including scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush in your underwear. I don’t know if that has changed from the 1970′s.

There was a scandal in the early ’70′s involving SERE training, where the older cadets got out of hand. It is a long story that I don’t have time to do justice to at the moment (I did post about it on the Zone That Was.) I have searched before for something online documenting it without success. It did not involve rape but did involve one individual that later crafted the “enhanced interrogation” policy of the Iraq War.

But this brutality goes beyond hazing or training. It’s evil breeding more evil.