Can't speak to any other countries, but most of that stuff is not standard in the US military. You can't piss on trainees, you can't deprive them of food for days at a time, you generally can't waterboard them or break their fingers, or beat them.

There are specific training programs that have more leeway to put you in stress positions, or deprive you of sleep, or administer physical contact (not really beatings by any reasonable measure), but most of the stuff described crosses the line for what is allowed, certainly in today's military. Now, 30 or 40 years ago, maybe more of that was going on.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

We may not have many soldiers, but I guess the ones we do have have to be extra tough. Either that or this guy is just a wimp.

The SERE schools in the mid 90's would be considered torture, from second hand reports (my brother).

He's a corroborating report.

---

Suffer Well.

Can't really objectively comment. I earned my dolphins in 1982 and put on my anchors in 1990. Nothing in that article seems that out of place to me, but I've heard what we did back then is considered by today's snowflakes to be torture.

---

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I have been in the Canadian military for 23 yrs. From 1982 to 2006. Too many people are jumping on the PTSD bandwagon and expect a big payout out if it. Some of them sounds like firefighters complaining about smoke inhalation during their career. JC

Back in the USAF's survival school in 1973, as students we experienced some of the "lessons learned" from the POW's who'd returned from North Vietnam. Forced to sit in "uncomfortable" positions, confined to small boxes, lots of yelling and threats, sleep deprivation, lack of food and water, etc. But pretty mild compared to what the POW's had to deal with.

People sometimes embellish facts to make their personal experiences seem more interesting/exciting. Or maybe they have an axe to grind or they're looking for a payout/sympathy.

I'd be surprised to find out there was much in the way of excessive brutality in the Canadian (or most "western") military forces. I've heard stories about military training in some of the "asian" military forces that seems to be simply sadistic, but I never experienced any of this first-hand.

---

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Not criticizing just curious. So you were never waterbaorded? Forced to watch someone else be waterboarded? Ever pissed on? Pissed in someone else?

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

GI Jane never complained, and in the end the training saved her life and earned the respect of her SEAL team.

Funny you mention that. I was talking with a classmate who is a Team guy and he said that she came down to Coronado for a tour in preparation for that movie. They showed her around, gave her the movie star tour, and toward the end, she asked when they actually start beating the trainees. He had to actually convince her that they don't actually beat up the trainees. Didn't stop them from putting it in the movie of course,....

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Don't have any military experience but I cannot imagine the justification for this type of stuff. Do you think it works. Are there studies that show it does. We see people who function quite well in very stressful situations and then quite unexpectedly break. If you survive this does it mean you will survive a POW situation. I would bet POWs would say don't do this.

---

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I completed the Navy SERE course of training in 1990 at the beginning of the first Gulf war and it pretty much fit the description in the linked story. Each aspect of the course was taken from the actual experiences of POWs and those caught behind enemy lines in previous conflicts, toned down from the real experiences but not completely. I missed the waterboarding evolution because one of the "interrogators" broke my collarbone when he tried to grab my by my shirt after I bounced off a wall from his last response to his question. I did spend a lot of time in a small box, get weapons pointed at me, abusive language and other techniques inflicted upon me, but I gutted it out despite having my shoulder swollen up from the interrogation mistake.

Personally I don't have a lot of respect to anyone complaining about torture after going through SERE school; it's supposed to be and introduction to that art! I also went through the shellback ceremony and had my new stripes "tacked on" through my career and never felt like I was being treated badly or needed some counselling to deal with my emotions from those events.

your last paragraph seems a bit of an odd thing to say. first, because presumably real torture could be much worse than what you experienced. and second, because if what you experienced was so bad that you really would have no respect for someone complaining about torture (again, really?), then it must have been so bad that why wouldn't it be reasonable for someone to suffer PTSD and need counseling?

3 out of the 6, yes.

And, in 1985, if the Dive School instructor with the MOH wanted to pee on you, you let him.

Yep, 3 out of 6 in the Navy in 1975.

My friend was a Navy pilot in the 80's and as part of his training had to stay in a Rambo movie style underground hut for a couple of nights.

---

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

I would have to say no to your 4 questions. The only time pee was involved was as a prank, mostly involving alcohol, not as military training or exercise.

This story raises too many flags for me and there's not enough info to really make an opinion.

My assumption with the little info I have is this:
- 9yrs in the military. Not long enough to draw a pension.
- More than 30yrs since it happen. Why complain about it now?
- Lives on an island in BC. Finding a job might be hard.
- News from the CBC. Left leaning news network that really loves to stick it to the military.
With this I would assume that he is out of work, or hard for cash, and looking for a cash cow.

I've seen too many cases of claimed PTSD that are bogus. And this one with the little info I have doesn't pass the smell test. Again this is just my assumptions...

It is so bad that I know people that do need help and refuse to get it. Not because of the stigma of PTSD but because they don't want to be associated with some of the so called claimants. JC

What is so odd about my opinion? The training was for people who stood a chance of being shot down or captured by enemy forces because of their job in the military. The training was not nearly as bad as the torture it was meant to prepare us for so I don't see it as torture itself. I have no respect because each of the people who attended the training CHOSE those career fields knowing that SERE was a requirement along with other equally unpleasant training requirement like jungle survival, cold water survival and the like.

If a person was so frail that the SERE training caused them to need counselling or experience PTSD, then they should leave the career field and let someone with a stronger mind take that job, because the real life stresses of those jobs is often worse than the SERE training without even being ever shot down behind enemy lines. Having been in one aircraft mishap, and having had to photograph several others, SERE was a theme park visit compared to having to search for a coworkers body parts in a field after one such mishap.

I guess I misread your post. I thought you were saying "Personally I don't have a lot of respect to anyone complaining about [real] torture after [I went] through SERE school."