USAFA Brawl

[SocialD]

My guess, is they were fighting over the one semi-decent looking chick...

https://www.huffingto..._n_2051920.html

Air Force Academy Brawl Injures 27 Cadets

DENVER — The Air Force Academy said 27 cadets were injured in a brawl during an unofficial ritual marking the first snowfall of the season.

Six cadets were taken to an off-campus hospital after the Oct. 25 ruckus and have been released, the academy said Wednesday. The others were treated at a cadet clinic.

The injuries included concussions, cuts and a human bite, and some cadets required stitches, Brig. Gen. Dana Born wrote in an internal email that was provided to The Associated Press and other media outlets. Academy officials confirmed the email is authentic.

Born is dean of faculty.

Academy officials were treating the incident as a "teachable moment," said Lt. Col. John Bryan, a school spokesman. He said he did not know of any plans to discipline cadets.

Brig. Gen. Gregory Lengyel, the commandant of cadets, said in a statement that the brawl was unacceptable.

Lengyel did not say how many cadets were involved but said it was a "relatively small number."

The ritual is called "First Shirt/First Snow" and involves freshmen trying to throw cadet first sergeants – known as first shirts – into the snow.

"This ritual has devolved to become increasingly violent, with significant numbers of cadets requiring medical care over the past two years," Born wrote in her email.

"What used to be (freshmen) throwing the first shirt into the snow has turned into a brawl between upperclassmen defending the first sergeant and the (freshmen) trying to capture the first sergeant."

It wasn't immediately known how many cadets were injured last year.

"Obviously, this has gotten out of hand and cannot be repeated," Born wrote.

Born wrote that Lengyel stopped short of banning the ritual and said cadets could propose keeping it if they found a way to avoid violence.

The academy is located outside Colorado Springs and has about 4,000 students. Upon graduation, they are commissioned as second lieutenants in the Air Force.

[raimius]

It was First Shirt First Snow...apparently another tradition that will die in the light of safety/media attention.

[ThreeHoler]

Ah...takes me back to the good old days of things like "the gauntlet" where people often got broken bones/noses...

[Guest one]

I know traditions are important to a certain extent but does the Air Force have any traditions that don't suck.

A snow ball fight. Who the fukc bites someone in a fight?

I have friends in the marines and they tell me about some of their traditions and I can't think of anything in the Air Force that is similar.

At OTS one of the traditions is a Friday pizza party that you have to dress up in a costume and pretend you are having fun. Another tradition led to us having to do a flash mob. I am not trying to shit on the Air Force but I can't believe this is the type of shit we have to do. I know the Air Force and especially OTS is not old enough to have many serious/important traditions but do I really have to dress in a tigers costume and participate in a flash mob. When I told my friends in other services what I had to do they didn't believe me.

I don't want to digress too much but...I can't tell you how pissed I was when someone put the flash mob on youtube. It got posted around every where and when I talked to my seven year old son he asked why I had to dance. This type of shit makes the Air Force look bad.

Edited November 1, 2012 by one

[BADFNZ]

I know traditions are important to a certain extent but does the Air Force have any traditions that don't suck.

A snow ball fight. Who the fukc bites someone in a fight?

I have friends in the marines and they tell me about some of their traditions and I can't think of anything in the Air Force that is similar.

At OTS one of the traditions is a Friday pizza party that you have to dress up in a costume and pretend you are having fun. Another tradition led to us having to do a flash mob. I am not trying to shit on the Air Force but I can't believe this is the type of shit we have to do. I know the Air Force and especially OTS is not old enough to have many serious/important traditions but do I really have to dress in a tigers costume and participate in a flash mob. When I told my friends in other services what I had to do they didn't believe me.

I don't want to digress too much but...I can't tell you how pissed I was when someone put the flash mob on youtube. It got posted around every where and when I talked to my seven year old son he asked why I had to dance. This type of shit makes the Air Force look bad.

I graduated from OTS 5 years ago and I have never heard of any of the shit you just described.

[Guest one]

You didn't have the squadron ran commander's call which required you to dress up and do a bunch of stupid crap?

You didn't have to do something stupid to get classed up? We had to do a flash mob. I know other classes before us and after us had to do similar bullshit.

Consider yourself lucky if you didn't have to do that. It would have made the experience a lot better.

https://youtu.be/uoj257dF-qE?t=55s

Maybe some people like doing this shit but I am not one of them. I didn't do this shit at BMT and I certainly didn't think I would be doing it at OTS.

Edited November 1, 2012 by one

[billy pilgrim]

At OTS one of the traditions is a Friday pizza party that you have to dress up in a costume and pretend you are having fun. Another tradition led to us having to do a flash mob.

Wait - how does OTS have "traditions"? Continue.

[Guest one]

The upper class sharing with the lower class whatever bullshit they want to tell us.

I know that since OTS graduates are inferior we can't have real traditions like the academy graduates. You know... traditions like rolling around in the snow and biting each other.

Edited November 1, 2012 by one

[HuggyU2]

Just so I understand: leadership required you to do that flash mob thing?

Edited November 1, 2012 by Huggyu2

[Guest one]

We even had to practice multiple times and have rehearsals. I wish this was a joke. I didn't want to make a big deal about it but I did include all of this in the critique at the end of OTS.

I don't want people to go on youtube and think that Air Force training is all fun and games. I don't want my family to think I am spending months away from them to go to some screwed up summer camp. There are bigger things for me to worry about now but I really think this does make the Air Force look bad.

[Spinner]

https://youtu.be/uoj257dF-qE?t=55s

Please tell me you aren't the dumbass wearing 3 reflective belts...

[Guest one]

I would never send people a video of me doing this shit. This is a few classes before us.

The real problem is, this is the first military experience for a lot of these people. They think this shit is the norm.

This was done in front of the OTS commander to get promoted to the next trainee rank.

Edited November 1, 2012 by one

[HuggyU2]

... the OTS commander to get promoted to the next trainee rank.

Explain, please?

"OTS commander" is a cadet, right?

[SocialD]

https://youtu.be/uoj257dF-qE?t=55s

If i'm ever dancing to this song, I had better have a jack n' coke in one hand and a piece of ass in the other!

[sky_king]

The two in the front of the group are loving it. Mark my words. Both will make O-7.

[dontshavemyhead]

I thought OTS was gay back in FY09...

Edited November 1, 2012 by dontshavemyhead

[17D_guy]

Went through 09-05 Tiger myself. We did Friday CC call with Pizza. I thought it was a good time, especially the blue falcon's and naming that went on, same for the Sat one as well. Overall it wasn't that bad. I think the gold hawks got dressed up at that time. Hoyas.. who knows.

Tigers were a little more "motivated" than the other 2 flights, but we didn't do any stupid costumes, dances, or flash mobs.

It's all training environment fun. Same dumb sh*t happens in Basic Training, it's just less "leadership" focused.

[Guest one]

Explain, please?

"OTS commander" is a cadet, right?

No, the OTS commander was a Lt Col..

[HeyWatchThis]

It's all training environment fun. Same dumb sh*t happens in Basic Training, it's just less "leadership" focused.

I went to BMT in December 2003...we didn't do any dumb sh*t that would have remotely resembled a flash mob dance or dressing up in costumes and eating pizza........

The only day that was centered around "fun" was a competition day. It involved sprints, pushups, tug-o-war (which the TI's took seriously and was brutal on your legs), etc. Again, no ass-grabbing dance dance revolution shennanigans.....

I thought the ROTC field training was a joke (still is) but even there we didn't dance and we didn't get pizza until the night before going home....

[Guest one]

OTS and BMT were nothing a like....in anyway.

Don't get me wrong...OTS was much harder. I agree with MattS, I didn't do any of that type of stuff at BMT. Nothing even close to that.

Don't get me wrong, being able to eat pizza once a week was nice but way too much emphasis was placed on planning the "CC Call". The blue falcon and some of the weekly awards were fun too. I just think some of the dancing around and wearing costumes was a little over the top.

[sputnik]

No one bit anyone, someone's arm swung back....into someone else's teeth. My guess, it was worse for the teeth owner.

As faculty what is often annoying about being here is that no one tells us anything--unless you hear it from the cadets. So this time the Dean actually tells us something, and some ass clown instantly forwards it to the media.

It was a hall brawl, who cares?

[Guest]

No biting. That sounds like shitty technique. More training required.

[FallingOsh]

On a positive note, the article makes it sound like the CoC isn't freaking out and banning the "tradition."

[17D_guy]

I went to BMT in December 2003...we didn't do any dumb sh*t that would have remotely resembled a flash mob dance or dressing up in costumes and eating pizza........

Went through BMT in '99, so perhaps things have changed. But I meant non-leadership (student, TI, or otherwise) inspired things.

Generally at night after the TI's had departed stupid things happened. We sang, ran around naked, and other assorted embarrassing things that are only appropriate in a training environment, but generally make it easier to get through. Did you not have those occurrences at BMT?

OTS we had hats, painted a rock repeatedly, sang... and had those stop march step things. Which were glorious because we could annoy faculty with them.

[Guest one]

I think BMT changed a lot after 9/11. We had a TI around until lights out for almost the whole time.

We did the same stuff at OTS. We definitely didn't do anything that would annoy the faculty though.