West Point in the News

[Army Fencer]

Wow...

http://www.theonion.com/4006/news3.html

Poorly researched, but quite funny-- if nothing else because the Navy goat dies.

[frenzl]

it's a pretty good article. this is what happens when the armed forces get board.

[whtouche]

Originally posted by frenzl
it's a pretty good article. this is what happens when the armed forces get board.

It didn't say anything about the navy boarding anyone

[jBirch]

Frenzl,

No. This is what happens when the armed forces get boarded.

[Soldier]

Come on, you ask for research from The Onion?

Great article, though. Too bad they've gone HR-crazy here, plus the after-shocks of the scandal. If we tried to get forcibly into a girl's room, at night, we'd be court-martialed. And I'm not joking.

[whtouche]

Originally posted by Soldier
Come on, you ask for research from The Onion?

Great article, though. Too bad they've gone HR-crazy here, plus the after-shocks of the scandal. If we tried to get forcibly into a girl's room, at night, we'd be court-martialed. And I'm not joking.

I believe it.
If anyone tried to get forcibly into anyones room at night chances are they'd be arrested. I would hope so at least.

[telkanuru]

Onion == amusment, satire. I do dearly hope you were jesting about the research. I do remember that a chinese newspaper published the "Congress demands new stadium, retractable dome" story, thinking it was true, and then demanding the Onion retract it and apologise when they found out it wasn't.

[Army Fencer]

Originally posted by telkanuru
I do dearly hope you were jesting about the research.

Of course, but it would have been nice to have a few facts straight (Bartlett Hall, for instance is not a dorm, but the Physics and Chemistry Building...). It would also have been cool if they had a picture of a guy in dress gray.

[Soldier]

Originally posted by whtouche
I believe it.
If anyone tried to get forcibly into anyones room at night chances are they'd be arrested. I would hope so at least.

Not necessarily. Half the times it would happen here (same gender) for purposes of a prank, everybody laughed (including those on the receiving end), people got some demerits, and life went on.

Now try to put panties on display, even if they were given to you voluntarily, and you're in some serious trouble.

[Army Fencer]

Originally posted by Soldier
Now try to put panties on display, even if they were given to you voluntarily, and you're in some serious trouble.

Have you had problems with this?

[Soldier]

No - we're too fond of living. Seriously - trying something like that is not worth it. Under the new system, were it done voluntarily, we could easily get an LOR or LOA, or something of the sort. Without permission...an Art15 would not be inconceivable. Sneaking in at night...yeah, that could be court-martial material. Trust me: The hours of briefings have been quite specific.

[j4koch]

Soldier,

Have you seen the article in the Colorado online magazine, 5280, about the Academy's problems? I can well believe that the briefings on this issue have been very specific.

I especially find it interesting that there is a fencing involvement in this?!?!

Here is the link if you haven't read it yet:
http://www.5280.com/issues/0402/conduct.php

[Soldier]

Alright. Yes, the Academy had a problem. Yes, it is being dealt with. Yes, some of the reactions are perhaps over the top.

Was Meester guilty? Based on the little bit of it I have seen, it sure looks like he thought it was consensual. Sure put himself in a stupid position, however. As did she.

Yes, there was a problem. The way things were run here for a long time, was just wrong. Things were hushed up, and it enrages me to think of the crime itself, let alone the idea of letting it go unpunished. However, there is still a lot of crap floating around. Take one of the girls who recently appeared on Oprah (that whole thing was horribly set up and one-sided, by the way). She was in an upperclassman's room, drunk, having sex, when somebody walked in. Right there, you have sex in the dorms, fraternization, alcohol in the dorms, and underage drinking - plenty to get her kicked out, unable even to pay her time back as enlisted, forced to pay it all back in cash. One little four-letter word could make it all go away...and it did. Was she actually being raped, or was it consensual? It's a matter of he-said she-said here. I don't know for sure, but her case sure looks rather suspicious.

Let me start by singing the praises of Brig. Gen. (one star) Weida, and Lt. Gen. (three stars) Rosa, the main leadership here. They are excellent leaders, effective officers, with a mind on what is right and good, not how it's been done. They both hold strong moral convictions. Both are working as hard as they can do do the best possible by their cadets.

Second, I never had the misfortune of being under the previous leadership, all of whom were removed by Dr. Roche. However, I have heard the horror stories from the upperclassmen - the leadership was outright despotic, wielding their power like a frat leader over freshman pledges, rather than a real officer over men in training beneath him.

The Academy is right to move to fix the problem, and it is being rapidly fixed, I assure you. This is currently probably the safest institution in the country a person could send their daughter to; I'm pretty sure it's one of the safest in the entire world. There are a very few of us here who would hesitate for an instant to beat the living **** out of a rapist; at least one Colonel has given cadets beneath him unofficial permission to throw any known rapist right off the Terazzo (a three story drop). Even before, this place was (and still is) pervaded by a powerful sense of morality and justice. The cases which made the news were by far a minority, and the vast majority of cadets had no idea that anything was going on until the news broke. But, Lt. Gen. Rosa's words still hold true: Even a single case of sexual assault denotes a serious problem.

Unfortunately, like most large agencies, the Academy is giving a knee-jerk reaction. The door must be propped open any time a mix of genders occuppies any room; this much makes sense. But how about the fact that no mix of genders are allowed to share the same horizontal surface? That's right. If I'm sitting on the floor, a girl can't sit on the same floor. If I'm sitting on the radiator at the side of the Squadron Assembly Room, with the entire rest of the squadron there, getting briefed, anyone else who sits on that radiator had better be male.

Yes, the briefings have been very specific, and ad nauseum. No, not a person here would dare pull something like what the Onion article talked about.

[j4koch]

I do apologize, I was not trying to add fuel to the fire of controversy raging about the Air Force Academy. I was quite interested in your opinion on the story that I referred to in my first posting. In light of your earlier comments regarding pranks and so-forth at the other service academies versus the USAFA, my curiosity was piqued by seeing a link to an article on the subject. When I read it and discovered that one of the main characters had been on the fencing team, the coincidence was astounding.

I have been performing investigations into accidents and incidents for over twenty years now. (I am a safety and environmental manager.) That's more than long enough to know that there are at least two sides (often there are more interpretations than participants) to every story. Further, having been assailed falsely by the media, as well as serving as both expert witness and jury member, I am also well aware of the bias placed on "facts" by individuals with personal agendas or even vendettas. The old oath about the "truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" means many different things to many different people.

From my perspective, both the male(s) and female in the story I mentioned placed themselves in very compromising positions. The question I see is not so much who is guilty, but what is guilt in these situations.

I appreciated your perspective, and, yes, your comment about the consequences of poor judgement going away by the use of a four letter word was illuminating. I had not thought of that.

I enjoy reading your posts and wish you well.