Marine quote of the day: If you want to curtail hazing, make training tougher

Marine Lt. Ethan Brooks wrote in the August issue of Marine Corps Gazette that:

"The current practice of cracking down on hazing without increasing the challenge of training insults our Marines and will deservedly lose us our reputation as the toughest Service. When young men and women join the Marine Corps, they expect to be pushed to their breaking points. We owe this to them."

This takes a benign view of hazing. In my experience, it happens more to outsiders, people who are different, perhaps as a way of bonding among the tormentors who by their acts define themselves as the insiders. That said, I know that some military hazing occurs as a way of punishing the weak and recalcitrant.