Annual Cadet Pillow Fight Banned After 30 Hurt

Until now West Point has not commented on the ritual, or the injuries sustained while taking part, so it is not known how this year’s fight compares with others.

West Point military academy has banned the traditional annual pillow fight after this summer’s event turned nasty and a number of students suffered broken bones.

Some cadets swung pillow cases filled with hard objects according to a story in the New York Times, published Saturday, Sept. 5.

Nicknamed “plebes”, first-year students are responsible for organizing the pillow fight, held nearly every year since 2001. It said that upper-class behaviors “ranged from throwing items such as small milk cartons, water balloons, fruit and glow sticks from barracks windows to yelling at plebes and encouraging them ‘get back into the fight'”. One cadet was identified by military police with a tough thing in a pillow case as hitting another cadet.

Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, West Point’s superintendent, said Wednesday in a news release that the unsanctioned event has “no place in the future” in an academy developing Army officers. Caslen said the event might have been prevented with better communicating between senior military personnel and cadet leadership before the pillow fight.

West Point academy argued at the time the fight was created to build “esprit de corps”.

This caused a stir online, as there were not only bloody noses but also concussions, resulting in about 30 injuries.

“I am taking appropriate action based on these findings – to include administrative actions against senior military members and cadets alike – to send a clear message that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated at our nation’s premiere military academy”. Many injuries were the results of cadets being hit by elbows or other body parts during the scuffle of the pillow fight or from falling or being knocked to the ground, it read.

There is evidence of the pillow fight existing as far back as 1897 at West Point, a prestigious training school that once taught Dwight D Eisenhower, Ulysses S Grant, and Douglas MacArthur.

However, cadets did reveal that in 2012, a cadet put a lockbox in a pillowcase causing injuries, and in response, the 2013 fight was canceled.