{"id":19641,"date":"2012-09-21T01:25:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T04:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=19641"},"modified":"2012-10-09T08:23:11","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T11:23:11","slug":"us-military-has-a-drinking-problem-army-frat-party-goes-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/21\/us-military-has-a-drinking-problem-army-frat-party-goes-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"US Military has a Drinking Problem, Army Frat Party Goes Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update<\/strong><\/span><\/em>: Major Garbarino was convicted at court-martial<\/a> of being drunk and disorderly and received 30 days and a fine of six months pay<\/a>.\u00a0 He was acquitted of other charges.<\/p>\n

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The Associated Press announced<\/a> that the National Academy of Sciences has called ‘substance abuse’ within the US military a “public health crisis<\/a>.”\u00a0 Among other things:<\/p>\n

The study…says about 20 percent of active duty service members reported they drank heavily in 2008, the last year for which data is available. And, binge-drinking rose to 47 percent in 2008 from 35 percent in 1998.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report also cited abuse of prescription drugs — particularly prescription pain killers and similar drugs, the use of which has skyrocketed to “nearly 5 million prescriptions” over the 1 million issued more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

The issue of drinking, of course, is nothing new.\u00a0 Just rent any black and white movie about sailors in foreign ports or fighter pilots…well, just about anywhere.\u00a0 “Military” and “drinking” are practically a stereotype.<\/p>\n

In an interesting timing coincidence, Army Major\u00a0Christopher Garbarino is being court-martialed for his behavior<\/a> after his “mandatory” attendance at what amounts to a fighter pilot roll-call<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Senior officers at a 4th Infantry Division unit…tried to create their own fraternity-style social group \u2014 complete with bylaws, initiation rites and promises of binge drinking \u2014 in an effort to build team morale and camaraderie…<\/p>\n

Senior leaders drew up eight pages of bylaws, stating that prospective members \u201cmust be cleansed\u201d before joining and that junior members \u201cmust do as told\u201d when directed by association officials…<\/p>\n

Officers in the battalion [told] investigators that attendance and [alcohol] consumption at parties was an unofficial requirement. A flyer sent around for the March event called for each company to supply at least two bottles of liquor and said the party would last \u201cuntil liver failure.\u201d Organizers used a log book to track attendance…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ultimately, every member of the military is responsible for their own actions, so it is unlikely a defense of “he made me do it” will stand long.\u00a0 On the other hand, it will be interesting to see what, if any, impact there is to the careers of the “senior leaders” who created the environment — apparently corroborated by many people — that the “frat party” not only required their attendance, but their participation.<\/p>\n

Who said social pressures ended in high school…?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: Major Garbarino was convicted at court-martial of being drunk and disorderly and received 30 days and a fine of six months pay.\u00a0 He was acquitted of other charges. The Associated Press announced that the National Academy of Sciences has called ‘substance abuse’ within the US military a “public health crisis.”\u00a0 Among other things: The study…says about 20 percent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1061,2,40],"class_list":["post-19641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-alcohol","tag-military","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}