From: coombs@asta.uucp (James H. Coombs)
Subject: Re: Evil Black Belts (Re: Fighting against animals?)
Reply-To: coombs@parc.xerox.com
Organization: Xerox PARC
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 08:00:13 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.224240.8840@midway.uchicago.edu> wag5@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <C1HAtF.A44@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> shulick@cineret.ucs.indiana.edu (Sam Hulick) writes:

>	I seem to recall the Marines getting into severe trouble
>when, on a training exercise, a number of trainees were killed
>by the training, leading to an overhaul in the way the M.C. functions,

I don't remember the details.  A DI took his troops into that swampy
crap around Parris Island, and several drowned.  That was a LONG time
ago.  I was at PI in 69, so I think it must have been early 60s.

>resulting in the current policy that a trainermay not touch
>the trainee. Thus, one would not be able to have an officer
>practice violent instruction and be accepted as a member of the
>Corps.  I realize that individuals will do whatever pleases them,
>however, and so there will be isolatd stories of abuse.

Oh, did this make me laugh!  Yes, there is policy and there is
practice.  What shall we consider abuse?  Perhaps it will give you a
sense of things if I tell you that on my last day, my DI wanted to know
who he had not hit, and everyone volunteered me.  Now, it wasn't true,
but I suppose that I had taken relatively little direct instruction,
given that I was highly motivated from the start.  I didn't mind the
attention until he started punching me in the throat instead of the
solar plexus.  Not hard punches, but then he was just being friendly.

I don't really want to talk about the more impressive episodes.  It
would take too long, and I'm sure that there were no hospitalizations
that could be clearly attributed to violating policy.

Well, there was the night that they kept running a guy up to the
platoon upstairs.  "Pack your gear and go up to 2047."  Well, what do
you think the DI up there did?  Eventually, as far as I could tell,
they were tossing him in a dumpster and banging on the sides with
garbage can lids.

What goes on behind closed doors....

Oh, yes, you used the word "officer."  Officers don't touch you in
training.  They don't have anything to do with you, except to check you
out on guard duty.  So, sure, officers follow policy in training, but
they don't do the training.

>	Training by violent method can be effective but it
>can also be counterproductive in the sense that the trainee
>can be 'turned-off' to the subject, by associating it with
>violence and hectic authority.  This brings up some interesting

"Turned off"?!  John, what world do you live in?  The most important
part of training is to turn off your mind, your feelings, your
association with everything but your platoon and the corps.  They want
discipline and fighting ability and that's all.  No one gives a shit
about your whiney-assed little feelings, you're going to war!  Your
squad is going up that hill to divert machine gun fire while another
squad goes up the other side.  John, Marines are fodder.  And if you
get wimpy, your own unit will trash you to the extent necessary to
protect their own lives.  No one is well served by gentleness in
training.

That does not mean that an MA instructor should beat up on people
without motivation.  But you made general comments about training, and
I could not help reacting.  Yes, incidents with trainers other than
your DIs tend to be isolated, but I wouldn't push my luck.  We ran into
one rifle range instructor who thought being from the north was in
itself an act of reprehensible cowardice.

--Jim

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