Russia Post # 2: "Hazing"

Hazing is always nasty, and Russian military hazing has perhaps always been bad. But this.... (also an expired- link Moscow Times story):

"The Defense Ministry said Thursday that it would close the Chelyabinsk Armor Academy, where a brutal New Year's Eve hazing resulted in a conscript having his legs and genitals amputated."

(Snip-- no, let's NOT use that word)

"[Defense Minister] Ivanov..... at first played down the hazing as "nothing serious."

Reasons? Actually, this makes as much sense as anything:

""Hazing is a wild and barbaric way of maintaining discipline in the Russian army. In the absence of professional sergeants who maintain discipline in the barracks in any normal army, Russian officers put responsibility for keeping order on dedy " military analyst Alexander Goltz wrote in Yezhenedelny Zhurnal. Dedy are older servicemen who have completed a year or more of compulsory service and routinely abuse younger servicemen."

I have just been reading this book on the experiences of a Dartmouth Classics major who became a Marine officer, and the civilized nature of our services is in impressive contrast to this barbarity ( professional sergeants play an important part in our military culture).