Posted on 01/14/2023 7:35:33 PM PST by 11th_VA
(Tribune News Service) — A massive brawl broke out on a parade ground at Fort Gordon in Augusta one afternoon last fall, when about 70 teenage recruits of the Georgia National Guard’s Youth Challenge Academy slugged it out. Some used homemade weapons, including metal shanks, crudely sharpened toothbrushes and tube socks filled with metal padlocks.
Overwhelmed, the academy’s staff — most former military drill instructors — called for help, summoning the military police to break it up and ambulances to treat the injured. Two boys were taken to the hospital, one with a concussion, the other with bruised ribs. Others were treated on base after the Oct. 13 episode and sent back to barracks where cadets were placed on lockdown.
Within 24 hours of the brawl, a second melee involving more than two dozen teenagers broke out in one of the barracks and senior military leaders shut down the five-month boot camp in its first week, sending all 170 cadets home and barring them from Fort Gordon for a year. The violent week marked a debilitating breakdown of order for the state program that for three decades has helped at-risk youth complete high school education in an atmosphere of military discipline.
Since the shutdown, parents have been given little explanation from the National Guard about how the camp spiraled out of control so quickly...
Leaders rushing to meet a new enrollment quota last fall skipped their normal vetting process. That led to a failure to properly screen recruits for behavioral and mental health challenges...
And once the academy devolved into chaos and violence, the National Guard’s program leaders made a concerted effort to sidestep accountability and shift blame solely to the teenage cadets without accepting any responsibility themselves...
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
“Save it for the Jerrys!”
Teens you say?
Total recruitment failure.
Plus training failure.
Anybody want to bet this is going on with today's military?
Can I get my taxes back and buy a better DoD?
Somebody’s pronoun got dissed?
“ Leaders rushing to meet a new enrollment quota last fall skipped their normal vetting process.”
I think I see the problem.
L
Weed out those involved. They had their chance and they can onto their life of crime.
Yutes will be Yutes.
And yet....universities are falling all over themselves to elmiminate standardized testing (a form of screening). What could go wrong?
How about a well regulated militia?
Golly. What’ll those darn teens do next?
I’m sure there was very little diversity in the youts who rioted
Huh?
Sounds more like ‘Yutes’
Isn’t brawl plural for female Teen?
Wonder what the demographics of the “teens” are?
“How about a well regulated militia?”
I’m not much about marching, but locally we do have a few squirrels to practice on...
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