"Hazing" at Service Academies
Every year around fall rush time, I get nostalgic about my years as an active and I get out the scrapbooks, songbooks, pledge manual, paddle, etc just because I enjoy looking at them and showing them to my daughters.
My husband is completely clueless about all things Greek and, while he doesn't object to my continued involvement on an alumna basis, he has seen the negative way Greeks are often portrayed in the media and he chooses to believe that steorotype instead of my firsthand experience and no amount of argument on my part will change his mind.
We can agree to disagree, that's fine. But the thing that is upsetting to me is that he puts down a large part of my college experience by dismissing greeks but is a graduate of one of the service academies. I know for a fact that the things he and his classmates and everyone else I know who graduated from the place had to do would constitute hazing if they were fraternity pledges.
For example, it is mandatory that the entire student body attend football games and whenever their team scores all the freshmen have to do down onto the field and do the same number of push-ups as the score. In other words, if they score 5 touchdowns (including extra points) in a game, the freshmen have to do seven, then fourteen, then twenty-one, twenty-eight and thirty-five push ups.
They are also made to "sit at attention" while eating their meals and are taught to never have more in their mouth at one time than they can swallow immediately in case an upper classman chooses to put them on the spot and ask them questions.
They are not allowed, as freshmen, to use the main entrance in their dormitory and they are required to do something called "chow call" every morning where they have to stand in the hall and scream out the meal menus for the day.
I never experienced anything like that when I was a pledge, nor do I know anyone else who has. My husband claims that those things aren't hazing because they are pertinant and because it helps the class share experiences which brings them closer together. That the....??????
In addition to using this forum as a place to vent, I was wondering what you all think about this. Don't get me wrong, I think my husband went to a wonderful school and I am very proud that he gradutated from there. However, I think what they go through at the service academies is hazing and it upsets me that it is going on in a government sanctioned institution funded by my tax dollars while Greek systems at schools throughout the country are fighting for their lives.
KILLARNEY ROSE IS NOW LEAVING HER SOAPBOX!!!
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@~Tracy~@
"...For it's just the flame of a sister's love, that makes the world go round."
[This message has been edited by KillarneyRose (edited August 06, 2001).]
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