Fort Campbell Soldier AWOL After Hazing

Maine man charged with military desertion was hazed by team leader, father says
MORNING SENTINEL
BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
March 23, 2018

Anthony Seeley of Farmington says his son Austin and a fellow recruit were driven to leave their base in Kentucky after being put in dangerous situations by their team leader.

Austin Seeley, 19, of Farmington, third from the right in this group shot, left his Army post at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and was advised by his father to turn himself in to the Franklin County sheriff. Anthony Seeley, Austin's father, a combat veteran, said his son has been hazed and put in unnecessarily dangerous situations by his team leader. Contributed photo

The Farmington soldier who was charged with desertion was being hazed and put in dangerous situations by his team leader when he left his base without permission, his father said.

Pvt. Austin Seeley, 19, and his friend, Noah Fisher, 18, of Boise, Idaho, whose rank was unavailable but who also is enlisted in the Army, left their base, driving from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to Maine, and turned themselves in Monday at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office once the military issued a warrant for their arrests.

But that’s not the whole story, said Anthony Seeley, Austin’s father.

During an interview Thursday, Seeley said his son has undergone constant hazing – to the point of physical injury – from his unit’s team leader since he arrived at Fort Campbell in October.
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Gunnery Sgt. Thought Hating Recruits Was A Good Thing?

‘The more you hate them, the better you train them’: Parris Island’s most notorious drill instructor on trial

Marine Corps Times

Jeff Schogol

November 6, 2017

“You have to hate recruits to train them,” Felix told the investigator, according to Marine prosecutor Capt. Corey Wielert. “They get three meals a day, sleep eight hours. The more you hate them, the better you train them.”

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — ­Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix is a 15-year Marine, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and the father of four daughters. But he’s also become the Corps’ most ­notorious drill instructor, the Marine at the center of the Parris Island hazing scandal and now the defendant in a general court-martial that began Oct. 31 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 

Felix is accused of improperly hazing many recruits — for example, when one recruit puked in his chocolate milk, Felix allegedly made the squad leader drink it.
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Marine pleads guilty to hazing

If you still can't understand why some of the "non-deployed" servicemen and women commit suicide, here is part of the reason for some. It isn't as if they can just give two weeks notice and go home.

Marine NCO pleads in hazing case
Kansas City Star
July 16, 2013
The Associated Press

BEAUFORT, S.C. — A noncommissioned Marine officer at the Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station has pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and two counts of violating the Marine hazing policy.
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Marine staff noncommissioned officers charged with hazing

Marine staff noncommissioned officers charged with hazing
By Gina Harkins
Staff writer
June 14, 2013

Two South Carolina-based staff noncommissioned officers have been charged with violating the Marine Corps’ order on hazing and maltreatment and will face special courts-martial in coming months, officials said Friday.

Gunnery Sgt. James McArthur, an air traffic controller with Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron aboard Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., was charged May 20 with violating the service’s order on hazing, said Capt. Jordan Cochran, a Marine spokesman in Beaufort. McArthur faces charges related to violating orders, maltreatment and obstructing justice.

Staff Sgt. Justin Samford, an air traffic controller in the same unit, also faces charges related to hazing, Cochran said. He is charged with violating orders, maltreatment, falsifying an official statement and assault.

McArthur’s arraignment was held on Friday, and his special court-martial was scheduled for Aug. 27 to 29. Samford’s arraignment is scheduled for Monday.
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Army Major with 3 Bronze Stars hazed "to build team morale and camaraderie"

UPDATE
Carson major gets 30 days, forfeiture of some pay and reprimand

Major facing court-martial for misconduct says he was forced to drink to excess
By LEO SHANE III
Stars and Stripes
Published: September 17, 2012

WASHINGTON — Earlier this year, senior officers at a 4th Infantry Division unit in Colorado tried to create their own fraternity-style social group — complete with bylaws, initiation rites and promises of binge drinking — in an effort to build team morale and camaraderie.

But after an off-duty booze party went bad, an Army major claims he is being punished for giving into peer pressure and is being drummed out of the service to cover up hazing by high-ranking soldiers.

Maj. Christopher Garbarino, a 36-year-old with three Bronze Stars and a model service record, was charged in April after accusations of drunken mischief and inappropriate sexual contact during a rowdy party at the home of a battery commander.

But Garbarino’s attorneys, speaking on his behalf, say he was pressured by his battalion commander — the “Supreme Allied Commander” of the social club — to attend the party and drink heavily, and ended up so drunk that he claims no memory of the crimes he allegedly committed.
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Soldier in hazing video disciplined

Soldier who hit colleague with wooden mallet is disciplined
By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube
NBC News

An online video showing a U.S. soldier hitting a soldier of a lower rank in the chest with a wooden mallet has prompted shock and outrage -- and, ultimately, disciplinary action.

The incident took place in April 2012 at Fort Bragg, N.C. The video shows a sergeant first class striking Sgt. Phillip Roach, 22, slamming him into the wall behind him. Roach stumbles and then collapses to the floor, hitting his head on a nearby chair. The video ends there, but Roach's father says that after the camera stopped rolling, his son suffered a seizure.

Why would Roach stand quietly by as a fellow soldier slams a large wooden object into his chest? It is actually an extreme version of a promotion ceremony tradition.
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Soldier collapses after disturbing hazing

Soldier collapses after disturbing hazing ritual video

UPDATE Soldier who hit colleague with wooden mallet is disciplined

Soldier collapses after disturbing hazing ritual
Sep 3, 2012
Written by
CBS NEWS

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WWMT) - After CBS affiliated WWMT's exclusive look Thursday night at a Battle Creek soldier's disturbing military rite of passage, we're getting calls from lawmakers and military leaders alike.

Back in April, a fellow soldier recorded Phillip Roach's unauthorized promotion ceremony at Fort Bragg, just weeks after hazing related suicides at Fort Bragg led to Congressional hearings.

On Capitol Hill, military leaders promised to crack down on the practice.

The video stops short of showing seizures Roach's father says his son experienced as a result of the blow.

His father came to WWMT, concerned about the hazing and how the military responded to it.
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linked from Army Times

Verdict: Lejeune Marine did not haze junior colleague

UPDATE: Verdict: Lejeune Marine did not haze junior colleague
September 30, 2011 12:12 PM
HOPE HODGE - DAILY NEWS STAFF
Updated at 5:37 p.m.

A military jury decided Friday that a Camp Lejeune lance corporal who fought “like a drunken monkey” in the mixed martial arts ring was not guilty of assaulting a Marine in his unit who failed to complete a series of push-ups.

Lance Cpl. Chad Fyffe, 23, was acquitted on charges of assault, false official statement and drunk and disorderly conduct in a summer 2010 incident at his French Creek barracks. Fyffe, then a member of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines scout sniper platoon, called the four newest members of the unit into his room to inspect their rucksacks for the next day’s exercise. Upon finding that some of the sacks were missing pieces of gear, Fyffe and his roommates told the Marines to begin “25-and-5” sets, a push-up exercise used in the platoon for training and correction. When one Marine, Pfc. Charles Holloway, could not keep up, Holloway claimed Fyffe began punching him and kicking him in the ribs, then ordered him into a bathroom across the hall and pummeled him for 10-15 minutes before finally releasing him.
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also on hazing

Marine suicide tied to hazing

Marine suicide leads to charges

Marine’s suicide while on combat tour leads to charges

Marine’s suicide while on combat tour in Afghanistan leads to hazing inquiry against comrades
September 17, 11:31 AM

HONOLULU — In the chilly pre-dawn hours of April 3 in Afghanistan, Marine Lance Cpl. Harry Lew crouched down in the foxhole he’d been ordered to dig for disciplinary reasons — he’d repeatedly fallen asleep on guard duty — placed the muzzle of his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Three Marines — Lew’s squad leader, a sergeant, and two of his fellow lance corporals — have been charged with wrongfully humiliating and demeaning Lew. The two lance corporals have also been charged with assault, and one was charged with cruelty and maltreatment.
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3 Marines Accused Of Hazing To Appear In Court

3 Marines Accused Of Hazing To Appear In Court
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONOLULU September 8, 2011, 04:18 am ET
Three Hawaii-based Marines are appearing in a military court to face accusations of hazing and beating a fellow Marine who would later committed suicide in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Benjamin E. Johns, Lance Cpl. Carlos Orozco III and Lance Cpl. Jacob D. Jacoby face an Article 32 hearing, the military justice equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. The hearing will be held at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, where the three are assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.
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original report
Marine Suicide tied to hazing

Marine suicide tied to hazing in Afghanistan

UPDATE
3 Marines accused of hazing

Marine suicide tied to hazing in Afghanistan
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Aug 23, 2011 20:00:13 EDT
One Marine faces court-martial and another faces non-judicial punishment for allegedly hazing a lance corporal who killed himself in Afghanistan, according to a military investigation report obtained by Marine Corps Times.

Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, 21, killed himself with a two- or three-round burst from an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon early April 3, according to a Marine Corps investigation. He was hazed that night by two other lance corporals in 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, who were angry he had fallen asleep several times while manning a guard post, the report said.

“May hate me now, but in the long run this was the right choice I’m sorry my mom deserves the truth,” a message found on Lew’s arm said.

The report outlines an incident at Patrol Base Gowragi, in Nawa district, that escalated over several hours. It began with Lew not responding to calls on his radio about 11:15 p.m. on April 2.

A sergeant found him sleeping in a fighting hole, and told other lance corporals that “peers should correct peers,” without providing specific instruction, the report said.
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More than 1,100 soldiers have taken their own lives

ONE ARMY, TWO FAILURES

Maltreated and hazed, one soldier is driven to take his own life
By MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 7, 2011
For Army Spc. Brushaun Anderson, there was no escaping his torment.

The senior noncommissioned officers who ruled his life at a remote patrol base in Iraq ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag because they said he was “dirty.”

They forced him to perform excessive physical exercises in his body armor over and over again.

They made him build a sandbag wall that served no military purpose.

Anderson seemed to take it all in stride. Until New Year’s Day 2010, when the once-eager 20-year-old soldier locked himself inside a portable toilet, picked up his M4 rifle, aimed the barrel at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Anderson left behind a note lamenting his failures in the military, and some soldiers in his unit immediately said that Anderson had been driven to kill himself by leaders bent on humiliating him.

“No matter what Spc. Anderson did, no matter how big or small the incident was, his punishment was always extremely harsh, [and] a lot of the time demeaning,” one corporal later told Army investigators.

“Spc. Anderson’s punishments were not like anyone else’s in the platoon,” another corporal said. “Spc. Anderson was singled out.”

The U.S. Army is confronting an unprecedented suicide crisis. Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 1,100 soldiers have taken their own lives, with the numbers escalating each year for the last six years. Last year alone, 301 soldiers committed suicide — a new record.
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ONE ARMY, TWO FAILURES

Hazing in the Navy

Hazing in the Navy 4:12
CNN's Carol Costello reports on Navy hazing and examines why a commanding officer was promoted
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/10/12/am.costello.navy.hazing.cnn

Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD

Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD
Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, September 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — Former Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Rocha says he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after being physically and sexually abused by fellow sailors over a two-year period. But after a Navy investigation into widespread hazing allegations within the unit, the only sailor discharged was Rocha, because he also admitted that he is gay.

According to documents released by Youth Radio this week, Navy investigators found dozens of hazing incidents over a two-year span at the Military Working Dog unit in Naval Support Activity-Bahrain. At one point, the documents show, Rocha was hog-tied, fed dog food and tossed into a dog kennel full of feces. Commanders also openly questioned his sexuality and forced him to simulate oral sex on other men.

Following the investigation, Rocha sought treatment for PTSD and later admitted he is gay, the news outlet reported. Shortly thereafter, he was discharged under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prohibits homosexual troops from serving openly in the ranks.

However, the commander in charge of the unit at the time of the hazing did not lose his job, and was recently promoted to senior chief, documents show.

None of the alleged abusers was punished, according to the report.
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Gay former sailor says hazing led to PTSD