[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13845-13846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              PILLOW FIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Speier) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, like slumber parties and sleepovers, a 
pillow fight doesn't sound like the type of activity that would leave 
30 of our Nation's most promising future military leaders injured or 
call into question the management practices of the Army's top academy. 
Yet, that is exactly what happened.
  We just learned that, on August 20, West Point freshman cadets got 
together for an annual pillow fight, and according to press accounts, 
they swung pillowcases packed with large, hard objects, thought to be 
helmets. This fight badly injured 30 cadets, 24 of them diagnosed with 
concussions. There were shoulders dislocated, one cadet diagnosed with 
a hairline fracture of the cheekbone, some with broken noses and split 
lips. Before the fight, upperclassmen commanders reportedly encouraged 
the freshmen by telling them, ``If you don't come back with a bloody 
nose, you didn't try hard enough.''
  The American people deserve to know what happened here. West Point 
and the Army have provided conflicting explanations, saying in one 
instance, ``Many members of the plebe class spontaneously participated 
in a pillow fight,'' while, in another, they suggested that a pillow 
fight is a hallowed annual tradition, dating back to 1897. Well, which 
is it?
  West Point, apparently, doesn't know how to run this pillow fight 
either. This rite of passage has a track record of similar injuries, 
followed by ineffective attempts to make this event safer. Two years 
ago, for example, the 2013 pillow fight was canceled after at least one 
cadet placed a lockbox as a weapon in a pillowcase. Now it is back, and 
according to reports, the helmets the cadets were using to give their 
teammates concussions had been mandated as protection after injuries in 
previous pillow fights.
  May I remind everyone that this education is being paid for directly 
by the taxpayers of this country. The U.S. Government funds everything 
the Academy does to the tune of millions of dollars a year. It is 
utterly irresponsible to think that a violent pillow fight is a way to 
build camaraderie and create a professional military.

[[Page 13846]]

  West Point has stated that all cadets are back on duty and that it is 
pursuing an investigation, but Congress needs to know what kind of 
investigation it is pursuing and when we will receive answers. As the 
ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on 
Oversight and Investigations, I am calling on the Army and the U.S. 
Military Academy to provide a clear explanation of the incident and its 
causes, as well as a full accounting of who was responsible and what 
measures are being taken to prevent something like this from happening 
again.
  We will not create the world's most feared fighting force by hosting 
a concussion-filled slumber party. We must ensure that the august 
institution lives up to the exceptionally high standards that it 
represents and that our future military leaders live up to the great 
responsibility that rests on their shoulders. We can and we must do 
better.

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