Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Lauded as the prime
source of the New Zealand Army's future Senior NCOs and Officers, for 50
years the Regular Force Cadet School has kept secret a far more sinister
aspect to its existence. It started as a night
like any other for the cadets at the Army's Waiouru-based Regular Force Cadet
School. At 9.10 pm on 13 Feb 1981, a teenage boy was confronted by a Corporal
wielding an M16 rifle. In full view of other
cadets the Corporal chambered a live .223 bullet and switched the safety
catch off, bragging "see it's on semi [automatic]" and aimed it
directly at his victim's head. The Corporal could
detect the fear in his victim, see the confusion on his face, see the eyes
darting around the room looking for way out of this terrifying confrontation.
"Fuck off" his victim called out "I don't want to play your
silly fucking game…." With that the weapon
fired! "Cadet Bain fell to the floor, fatally wounded" - The Court
of Inquiry conducted to investigate the death by gunshot wound recorded. The
bullet shattered his jaw and passed through his neck, severing the carotid
artery. He died where he lay 5-10 minutes later. With astounding speed,
within three days, the cadet Corporal Read was tried in a civilian court for
"reckless use of a firearm" and sentenced to a mere "$200 and
200 hours community service". The judge was not told that Read had done the
same thing to another cadet only a few hours earlier, except that that time
he'd removed the charge from the bullet and so produced alarm without the
injury. I knew this story,
which was buried in the media, and many others from my own time as a cadet at
the Waiouru Cadet School. I also know many ex-cadets who have never got over
their experiences of violence at the school. Forty years later I've decided
that the disturbing history of the cadet school should be told. In the preparation of
this article I have contacted numerous former cadets, asking them to recount
their experiences and received information, including about Cadet Bain's
shooting, from the Army under the Official Information Act. Between 1948 and 1991,
when it closed, an average of over 5000 young New Zealand boys vied for entry
into the Army's elite RF Cadet School or the "Club" as it was
colloquially known. Less than 3% of them made the grade. Generally from white
middle class backgrounds the Army accepted them as young as 15 into its ranks
with promises of continued education, trade training and apprenticeships.
Most would go on to become the backbone of the Army - its Senior Non
Commissioned Officers (NCOs). A few would earn commissions as officers.
Almost all would either suffer or witness levels of abuse not tolerated in a
modern society. In the days following
Cadet Bain's death, and Corporal Read's hurriedly arranged light sentence,
the Army held its own Army Court of Inquiry into the death. It contains
possibly the fullest record in existence of the violence at the school. The Court of Inquiry
recorded that on the night Cadet Bain died, his company commander - concerned
about the levels of barrack room violence - "had organised an all-night
supervisory programme in an endeavour to prevent or detect serious incidents
of harassment." "Ironically"
the court found, the company commander "was absent from the barracks
when the shooting occurred, because he was attending to a cadet [in the base
hospital] who had been injured in an earlier serious incident of
harassment." "The Court is
concerned that the School is unable to supervise the barracks properly, and
thereby leaves this important responsibility largely in the hands of cadet
NCOs, who are really only boys with little military or leadership experience"
"Cadet NCOs have
received their licence to harass the junior cadets through the failure of the
Army to staff the School adequately." Barrack room supervision by adult
staff was "intermittent and inadequate." But most significant
admission in the Court of Inquiry report was that "All the cadets give
evidence of a pervasive pattern of violence inflicted on junior cadets by
cadet NCOs". This culture of abuse
permeated RF Cadet School right throughout its history and those in authority
did little if anything to stamp it out. Brian Main, a Cadet in 1956,
remembers "nightly barrack-room raids by senior Cadets terrorising the
junior class. I don't know how a death was avoided, they were bad news.
Rifles, brooms and other weapons were used in the dark so people did not know
where they were hitting their victims." The cadets were
organised with their own parallel rank structure to that of the regular army
(cadet sergeants, corporals etc). It was this mechanism that established and
entrenched the abusive culture into the unit. Any transgression of the rules,
and the rules appeared to be fluid, often being made up to fit the situation,
was dealt with extremely harshly. Although each barracks
had an adult NCO, Cadet "discipline" was never meted out whilst anyone
of any authority was around. Dobbing or actually telling the truth about the
cause of injuries or who was responsible was considered the most heinous of
crimes and recriminations would be considerably more severe than those
originally suffered. We all knew that there
was nowhere to go report or even talk about any abuse we were subjected to.
The Court of Inquiry acknowledged that "they were too frightened to
report violence." Thus isolation was added to fear. Reporting for sick
parade would often find a beaten Cadet being checked over by another Cadet
who was training as a medic. Cadets assisted admin clerks, manned
switchboards and operated communications equipment. There was no such thing
as "confidentiality" as somewhere in some critical point in the
system was another Cadet. Complaining or seeking help about abuse was bound
to lead to trouble. Many former Cadets,
while willing to share their experiences, are loath to be identified. This is
especially true when you raise the subject of sexual abuse within the unit.
One of my own classmates to this very day will not even acknowledge that he
was sexually abused by another Cadet nearly 40 years ago. "it's gone,
it's past, leave it alone" is about as vocal as I have ever heard him on
the subject. But sexual abuse did
occur. There were cases of Cadets being held down and sodomised by other
cadets or sexually assaulted with broom handles and that this led to more
than one suicide. But, not surprisingly, none of the victims wanted to go on
the record with their stories. But I can confirm that sexual abuse was a
reality. Talking to ex-cadets,
what is consistent across the 50 years of the school's existence is a
collective loathing of Sunday night inspections. By Sunday evening every
Cadet was expected to have his own personal kit squared away. All washing and
ironing completed. Shirts ironed and hung on the left hand side of his
wardrobe, sleeves overlapping, trousers in the middle and jackets on the
right hand side, again sleeves overlapping. Footwear was expected
to be highly spit shined so that you could see your reflection in them. A
Cadets' own personal bed space had to be immaculate, not particle of dust to
be found. Barrack room floors, covered in a red linoleum were waxed to an
unimaginable shine. "The first night we spent scraping wax from the
floors on our hands and knees with our eating utensils." Sunday night was also
retribution night. If anything was found to be out of order, a Cadets
bedspace would be trashed. Clothing thrown on the floor and stomped, footwear
scuffed, beds over turned. It was also the night when Cadets were informed
they were in for a "barrelling" or beating which could occur at any
time between then and the following Sunday inspection. Mike (a Cadet in the
early 1980's), said one of the lesser barrellings "…was to be tied to an
Army bed without the mattress, taken outside and leaned up against a wall.
Shaving cream, toothpaste, nugget and even shit would be rubbed all over you
then you would be hosed off with a fire hose. Not the best way to spend a
winter night in Waiouru." Not all the ex-cadets
found their time at the RF Cadet School difficult. One wrote to me: "I
was a clubbie from 77-79. There weren't many serious incidents (depending on
how you grade it) in my era. There was the rooms getting trashed at 3.00 am.
They would come into our rooms tip us out of bed and throw all our clothes
out of our lockers/drawers. This was done by Cadets a year ahead of us. There
would have been individual hidings given for various things though. I do know
we used to have to walk or run through the corridor with other Cadets lined
up either side and used to get hit/kicked but I can't recall that being too
bad." The Army of course
contained some senior staff who did care and made various attempts to stamp
out the violence. For instance, one former cadet told me how "In 1957 we
experienced most probably what was the only "drumming out" of a
Cadet from the Army. Two or three Cadet NCOs dealt a new Cadet a hiding
behind the barracks, and not being one on one, it just a turned out to be a
gang beating. They were found out, and the whole of Army Schools and Cadet
school was assembled on the then Army Schools parade ground." "The NCO's ranks
were ripped from their sleeves by the then CSM (Company Sergeant Major) of
Cadet school, Harry Allen, and ground into the parade ground under his heel.
With drums beating slowly they were then slow marched, under escort, from the
Army Schools parade ground to the Camp Cells/guard hut where they were held
until they were discharged. This was all after they had been court martialled
.It was certainly a rude awakening for someone who had just joined the
army…." On another occasion,
during my years at the school, there was a decision to remove all wardrobe
doors from the barracks. The reason for this was that beaten cadets were
repeatedly being left in the wardrobes, bleeding, unconscious and unattended
to. But the main attitude
from the Army hierarchy was neglect - neglect of boys as young as 15 years
old. It was as if the culture of violence and abuse was tacitly accepted as
part of making tough men. Not all the cadets
managed to cope. Some, with the assistance of parents, obtained discharges
from the Army. Others, tragically, took their own lives. But a more common
form of coping with the harshness of life was the development of alcohol
abuse amongst Cadets. More than one mother chided the Army "I gave you
my son and you gave me back an alcoholic." One incident, famous
amongst Cadets, involved the building of a tunnel from the Cadet Barracks,
under a road and up into the Sergeants Mess store room a distance of some
90m. The objective: obtaining a steady supply of beer and spirits. Cadet
Legend has it that this system worked well for some considerable time
"until some clown drove a tank down the road and the tunnel
collapsed." Whilst other children
were enjoying their formative teenage years and new found freedoms, Cadets
were isolated, denied the environment other adolescent boys were going
through in the course of normal developmental, anti-establishment, defiant
type phases. Cadets had to find other outlets and methods of coping. Boyish inquisitiveness
led Cadets to develop quite cavalier attitudes to handling the most lethal of
army ordnance. Procedures on firing ranges to ensure no live ammunition was
taken away were at best superficial. It wasn't uncommon to see an instructor
secret away a canister of ammunition behind the drivers seat of a Landrover
or RL Bedford, a scene I witnessed myself on at least two occasions. Cadets
became quite adept and extremely creative in acquiring anything from 7.62mm
rifle ammunition through to M-79 rifle launched grenades. Over the years a number
of Cadets lost their lives as a result. According to former Cadets the practice
of dismantling 7.62mm SLR and 5.56mm M16 ammunition was well known and went
back as far as the days of the .303 rifle. Bullets would be removed from
shell casings and the firing charge removed, or the more adept would merely
remove the primer from the end of the round with the intent of rendering it
"inert." In 1992, Reg Harris,
Warrant Officer at the School of Signals witnessed the result of an
"incident at the School of Signals where a Cadet found a M79 grenade or
two and was showing his mates. He banged two together and of course they
exploded killing himself and another plus severely injuring a couple
more" According to reports at
the time, the district court judge (D. Lowe) in the Cadet Bain case clearly
felt uncomfortable with the light penalties. He described the charge "as
comparable to one of careless driving causing death, where an act not grossly
culpable had serious consequences." He believed the incident giving rise
to the charge before him was far more serious than that. However Detective
Sergeant P.D. Hunt said "senior officers had instructed him to lay the
charge". He agreed that it could well be a charge of manslaughter but he
had been instructed to lay the lesser charge. Had Judge Lowe been in
possession of the Court of Inquiry findings, I suspect he would have upgraded
the charge to manslaughter or even murder, especially given that Corporal
Read had done exactly the same thing to another cadet only a few hours
earlier. The Defence record of
that earlier incident records: "There was a sharp crack…. Witnesses
recall that [the cadet] looked startled and rubbed his upper arm…. He says he
felt bits of powder hit his arm. He adds that he was very upset for a while
after the incident." Upset? The boy was
without question traumatised. According to Dr Jessica
Hamblen, of the American Centre for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, there
was no formal recognition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders until 1980
"At that time, little was known about what PTSD looked like in children
and adolescents. Today, we know children and adolescents are susceptible to
developing PTSD, and we know that PTSD has different age-specific
features" Dr Hamblem goes on:
"children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events often
exhibit other types of problems…. often have problems with fear, anxiety,
depression, anger and hostility, aggression, sexually inappropriate
behaviour, self-destructive behaviour, feelings of isolation and stigma, poor
self-esteem, difficulty in trusting others, and substance abuse…. Children
who have experienced traumas also often have relationship problems with peers
and family members, problems with acting out, and problems with school
performance." "Along with
associated symptoms, there are a number of psychiatric disorders that are
commonly found in children and adolescents who have been traumatized. One
commonly co-occurring disorder is major depression. Other disorders include
substance abuse; other anxiety disorders such as separation anxiety, panic
disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder; and externalising disorders such
as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder,
and conduct disorder." In mid-life, the
ex-Cadets I have contacted have mixed memories of painful events and life
benefits associated with their military experience. But many refuse to attend
class reunions because 40 or 50 years later the memory of the violence
inflicted upon them is still fresh in their memories. As a result of talking
to other ex-cadets, and thinking about my own experiences, I am convinced
that large numbers of the young men entrusted to the Army RF Cadet School by
their parents have, as a consequence, had to go through life with more or
less serious effects of trauma. POWs in Iraq will not
doubt in time receive large compensation payments as a result of their ill
treatment whilst in American custody. New Zealand's former Regular Army
cadets, who were often violently treated and traumatised by the very Army
they served, deserve official acknowledgement and compensation as well. For most, an
acknowledgement and apology from the Army for their brutal treatment would be
sufficient. For others, there is an obligation on the NZ Army to provide
medical treatment. Many of us showed great loyalty to the Army during our
careers. Hopefully the Army will be willing to do the same in return. ************* Ian Fraser can be contacted by other ex-cadets at
[email protected] - See also a related press release... Victims Of Army
Cadet School Violence Sought |