Army Bullying
By David McCombe

Recently there has been a greater awareness of “bullying”, or “intimidation, persecution or hurting of a weaker person”, as defined by Collins’ dictionary. But is it a new phenomenon?
Take for example Deepcut Barracks suicides. Pressure from the soldiers’ parents and families has led to an investigation by the Surrey police following allegations of a “cover-up” by the Army. However, speaking in the Lords Baroness Crawley disputed the allegation of a “cover-up”. Former Territorial Army officer Lord Redesdale called for a firmer stand on bullying in the armed forces and stating that there seems to be a large spate of suicides, and something is going seriously wrong. Responding, Lady Crawley said that bullying and harassment of any kind would not be tolerated in the Army or any of the forces. She went on to say that any such allegations are always thoroughly investigated and immediate disciplinary action is taken against those involved, if found proven.

I thought it worthwhile, therefore, to take a closer look at “bullying”. I discovered that it is in some circumstances “in bred”. For example, public schools such as Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse, Westminster and Winchester, practiced a fagging system, once an inherent part of the English public school system, under which junior boys acted as unpaid servants to seniors. Nowadays, fags and their fagmasters are an endangered species since public schools, like other parts of British society, have been subjected to the drive for reform and modernisation.

However, this legacy of “power-holding” dating back to the days when the wealthy so-called aristocracy could inflict any amount of dog’s abuse on the tenants living and working for them by threatening eviction and loss of employment, and indeed did so, is an example of the antiquated methods whereby Commissions could be bought in the Army by the “landed gentry” for their spouse. These Commissioned Officers would administer punishment upon an insubordinate, disobedient, mutinous, unruly, defiant, rebellious or non-compliant junior-ranking soldier so outrageous that such punishment today would cause the best psychologists and psychiatrists in the land to have the Officer committed for life to a lunatic asylum. Examples of this could be the cleaning of latrines with a toothbrush, or stand holding a rifle at arms’ length in the heat of the midday sun for hours on end. This satisfied the Officer, believing he had the God-given right to administer such punishment.

Therefore, in today’s modern Army when this punishment is no longer acceptable, a replacement has been found, constituting demoralisation, degradation, and de-humanisation and psychologically destroying the person of the soldier with a view to creating a type of robot creature, evidenced in the recent Iraqi war. Consequently, the Army states that any physical bullying will not be tolerated. But, the unseen bullying of the mind of the soldier is immeasurable, and has contributed immensely to the recent “suicides” such as those at Deepcut.
Doubtless there are many serving officers in the Army who have undergone Public school education, and would be familiar with the fagging system. Perhaps this is how they envisage performing their duties, some of which may include “bullying” learned at an early age from fagging. Who knows? But there is no excuse for inflicting upon someone weaker than oneself punishment, whether physical or mental, which causes the weaker person to perhaps become suicidal.

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