Fragging and rapping

Here is an interesting piece relevant to a pending court-martial?

Tim King, The Fragging of American Officers: Historic Problems and Future Planning, Salem-News.com.

What we call fragging the British Navy called "Shot Rolling" after the practice of rolling a cannon ball across the deck for the purpose of injuring an officer. The methods may vary but the results are the same.

The reasons behind such rash decisions may vary, ranging from cowardice, to revenge, to insanity and countless things in between. Dr. Phil Leveque points to PTSD as a primary reason in many cases, referring to the endless number of human beings who break down in war, sometimes with disastrous results.

There is not a current draft in the U.S., but there is a Stop-Loss program that prevents soldiers from exiting the Army on their end of service date. Not a draft, but the results are similar on more than one level. The policy has great impact on multiple tour combat veterans who simply need to exit the military, but are forced to stay.

The problems stemming from the lowered enlistment requirements and forced tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan are not of the same magnitude as Vietnam, at least not yet, but still worth noting.

To me this seems to have some relevance to the ongoing discussion about the rapper now pending court-martial charges for allegedly threatening various members of his unit, blogged here, and here, and here by CAAFLog (a link is there to the charge sheet).

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