MARINE BLOOD SPORTS

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

By the time something acquires a nickname, it may be said to have entered the realm of the normal. "Blood pinning," however, is anything but. Ordinarily, when Marine paratroopers complete 10 training jumps, they receive their golden wings, a pin with two half-inch protruding points on the back. Sometimes, with that military love of macho ritual, the pin is even proudly thumped into a Marine's chest to draw a little celebratory blood. But according to two amateur videotapes obtained by Dateline NBC and aired as well on CNN late last week, that ritual sometimes descends into something much more barbaric.

The tapes, which depict incidents among elite paratrooper units in 1991 and 1993, are chilling in and of themselves for the naked sadism they reveal. On them, dozens of Marines take turns punching, pounding and grinding the gold pins into the bloody chests of new initiates, who scream and writhe in pain.

The tapes are one more vivid manifestation of the military's greater problem: a seeming inability to police itself. In spite of leaders' repeated "zero tolerance" pronouncements--concerning political extremism, racism, sexual harassment and hazing--authorities are just as often forced to acknowledge a breakdown in the chain of command. Last week a sixth soldier at Maryland's Aberdeen training ground was brought up on charges of sexually harassing a trainee, while the Citadel, a military-training school, is in the midst of its own hazing scandal involving female cadets. Blood pinning cannot be written off as the overexcitement of young Marines: one video plainly shows a first lieutenant guzzling a beer and looking on as his men are being abused.

Military authorities insist that they will do all they can to prevent such hazing in the future. "If they think that the leadership of the Marine Corps believes that beating on their fellow Marine makes for a better warrior, they'd better find themselves a new occupation," said an angry General Charles Krulak, commander of the 174,000-strong Marine Corps. The new Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, declared himself "disturbed and disgusted" by the hazing and was forced to devote much of his very first Pentagon press conference to the stabbing scandal.

For all these protestations, pinning has a long history in the corps, and a few young jarheads last week jokingly called it a "Marine sewing circle," insisting that the ritual is an integral part of Marine bonding. But even some men who have been pinned warn that the tapes depict a form of hazing far more vicious than the customary single punch. Bernard Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general who lectures on national security at Harvard, has fond memories of the day he received his punch 32 years ago in Vietnam. "I never questioned it," he says. "It was part of the rite of passage." The senior jumper in his unit made a little speech, then handed out the wings. "I was the first guy in line, and he pinned it on my uniform and gave me the punch. The thing would go into your chest, break the skin, draw blood, but every day we had bigger bruises and bumps than that. We looked at our wings very pridefully, put the clips on the back, sat down and had dinner--and that was it." At first Trainor thought the furor was "the politically correct people trying to emasculate the military." Then he saw the footage. "The hair went up on the back of my neck. It was brutality that served absolutely no purpose whatsoever."

Military authorities have begun questioning some of the Marines involved in the pinning incidents. Because the statute of limitations has elapsed, those responsible cannot be court-martialed; they can, however, be booted from the corps with a "less than honorable" administrative discharge. Krulak said the 1991 incident, apparently the more egregious one, involved 30 Marines, nine of whom are still on active duty. General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seemed to raise the possibility last week that commanding officers could be held responsible. Said Shalikashvili: "Some leaders were involved and did not take the right steps. That's what's particularly bothersome about this incident."

Hazing itself, which many view as an integral part of the military tradition of breaking down a young Marine in order to build him back up, will be far harder to rout. Fifty-two Marines have been court-martialed, and at least 34 have received nonjudicial punishments for hazing since 1994; every other branch of the military--and many military-training schools--has disciplined personnel for hazing. As Shalikashvili put it last week, "We are always going to try to fix human behavior, but we are not always going to have 100% success." But if the leadership does not put teeth into its zero-tolerance policy, "the few and the proud" will have little to be proud of.

--Reported by Mark Thompson/Washington

With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington