An interesting story in the June 22, 2003 edition of the Houston Chronicle: "It was just after 3 p. m. on Saturday, October 12 [2002 presumably], when the first ax handle swung.
It took only a fraction of a second as that handle wielded by a Texas A&M University junior arced its way across a short distance to the buttocks of a sophomore, where its flat surface landed with a solid smack. [Alas, the ax handle as a tool of chastisement doesn't particularly turn me on.]
That brief moment, however, set the stage for one of the largest disciplinary actions in the history of Texas A&M. Since then 77 cadets from the university's elite cavalry unit have been singled out for punishment. . .
That smack was the first of many that sounded that day. A cascade of more than 300 others followed as ax handles slapped against 27 backsides in the Parsons Mounted Cavalry hay barn.
There were no reported injuries. No sophomores complained. . . Juniors in Parson's Mounted Cavalry say that it was common knowledge that in their group, incoming sophomores all received swats at some point during their first semester in the cavalry, ostensibly for a 'mistake' either real or perceived. The punishment is not compulsory, say students, but is rarely declined by the sophomores.
Last year's sophomores made their mistake on October 11, during the A&M-Baylor football game. Shortly before the game it was found that sophmores had forgotten to load part of the cannon assembly forcing juniors to race back for it. As part of the punishment the sophomores were assembled at Fiddler's Green the next day and asked to accept three half swats each from four juniors. [A half swat is delivered fairly close to the cute little rounded military sophomore tush, half the distance from a normal full-blooded swat, alas.]
'It was voluntary. They said we didn't have to take them, and we could walk away and nothing would happen to us. We all chose to take them,' a sophomore said.
The following week, however, Ty Keeling, a senior and commander of the cavalry unit, reported the incident to Corps Commandant John Van Alstyne. Van Alstyne did not respond to questions and Keeling did not return phone calls. But the other cadets said the senior - - also chaplain of the unit- - had previously opposed the ax-handle practice on religous grounds" [_d_a_m_n_ed little pc born again turd.]
Sophomores wouldn't cooperate with the investigation and 17 of the 27 signed letters supporting the Juniors who gave them swats. Also 7 of these 17 told the Chronicle they had no complaints about the punishment. However, a grand jury told the sophomores that they would be granted immunity and told them that if they did not testify, they would be jailed for contempt of court. [Who one wonders is really coercing and violating the sophomores' rights: the juniors who gave them the option of getting swats on their sweet little sophomore asses, or the state who claiming to protect them insists that they rat out the juniors, on pain of going to prison for contempt of court?]
One more piece of military cp in the perv's reading. The perv has been reading Christopher Hibbert's moderately good biography of Queen Victoria. Hibbert tells us of the Queen's father, "The Duke of Kent was a disappointed man. Trained for a military career in Germany, he had not achieved the distinction of recognition which he believed he deserved. He had served in Gibraltar, in Canada, and in the West Indies, and in all those places he had gained a reputation both for wild extravagance and the most strict and severe attention to military discipline: he would insist that the men under his command be roused at dawn and appear on the parade ground in impeccable condition and would punish infringements of his draconian rules by occasional executions and regular floggings of hundreds of lashes, as many as 400 being given for 'trifling faults in dress' and 999 the maximum permitted for desertion. He left Canada accused 'of bestial severity' and upon his recall from Gibraltar in disgrace, he was accused by his elder brother the Duke of York - - who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army - - of provoking mutiny by his conduct which 'from first to last was marked by cruelty and oppression'"