[Doug]

There’s a difference between bullying and initiation rituals, small little insignificant people bully so long as their allowed to get away with it. Initiation rituals from my experience aren’t all that extensive but do persist in some of the more competitive units. What does happen a lot is service men letting off steam, either as a result of action or boredom. These situations do go wrong and the results of what was shown on the news are an example. No matter how you look at it, when you join up you’re trained to kill, often by the simplest and most effective means if the lads and lasses aren’t physically engrossed in training or battle this sort of thing will happen. That’s not to say its right, it isn’t, but it is a fact of life that being a member of the armed forces is an aggressive occupation.