The whistleblowers and survivors of abuse in this industry are tired...

[year1buick]

I was fortunate enough to not have to endure anything that, in my own mind, I ever considered as abuse. But I did have the occasional run in with a certain visual field instructor (most Regiment alums from the 90’s could probably guess who) who tried to jump my case for being injured. 

One day, my bad knee was just not cooperating and kept giving out on me. Finally, it just completely buckled and I fell on my ### during a run. So, I took myself out to give it a rest. I intentionally waited until the rest of the corps got a water break before I headed over to get some myself. (I literally hopped over) He saw me getting water and started yelling at me that if I were really hurt, I wouldn’t be able to move at all and just tore into me, essentially saying I was faking.

It royally ###### me off and we both got into a heated argument right there on the sideline. I eventually stormed (hobbled) off to the food truck and, not very long after, the corps director came over to talk about it. I explained what happened and he said not to worry about it, he’d talk to ***. (We then talked about movies for a bit.)

At least that time, I wasn’t kicked off the field. (That was when I told one of the drum majors to p*** off. Heh heh.)

 

But I did witness (along with everyone else on the field) what I would consider verbal abuse that went way beyond the usual “tough” drum corps rehearsal talk. This person was publicly singled out relentlessly and I felt horrible for her. But when future Hall of Famers that eventually have caption awards named after them were saying it…

Thankfully, I don’t remember hearing anything like that my second year. All of our upper staff/caption heads—several of whom either came on or were promoted the year before (which I had to take off)—were all respectful, even when being critical. I mostly considered the person I dealt with as an occasional nuisance.

[FormerXyloWhiz]

16 hours ago, craiga said:

I, for one, don't even know what drum corps are talking about anymore!

Unfortunately, statistically based on the odds and through the years - all of them.

[Terri Schehr]

17 hours ago, year1buick said:

I was fortunate enough to not have to endure anything that, in my own mind, I ever considered as abuse. But I did have the occasional run in with a certain visual field instructor (most Regiment alums from the 90’s could probably guess who) who tried to jump my case for being injured. 

One day, my bad knee was just not cooperating and kept giving out on me. Finally, it just completely buckled and I fell on my ### during a run. So, I took myself out to give it a rest. I intentionally waited until the rest of the corps got a water break before I headed over to get some myself. (I literally hopped over) He saw me getting water and started yelling at me that if I were really hurt, I wouldn’t be able to move at all and just tore into me, essentially saying I was faking.

It royally ###### me off and we both got into a heated argument right there on the sideline. I eventually stormed (hobbled) off to the food truck and, not very long after, the corps director came over to talk about it. I explained what happened and he said not to worry about it, he’d talk to ***. (We then talked about movies for a bit.)

At least that time, I wasn’t kicked off the field. (That was when I told one of the drum majors to p*** off. Heh heh.)

 

But I did witness (along with everyone else on the field) what I would consider verbal abuse that went way beyond the usual “tough” drum corps rehearsal talk. This person was publicly singled out relentlessly and I felt horrible for her. But when future Hall of Famers that eventually have caption awards named after them were saying it…

Thankfully, I don’t remember hearing anything like that my second year. All of our upper staff/caption heads—several of whom either came on or were promoted the year before (which I had to take off)—were all respectful, even when being critical. I mostly considered the person I dealt with as an occasional nuisance.

I had one instructor say”screw you” to me once and I left. I obviously came back but that’s unnecessary at any time. And counterproductive. 

We had an assistant drum major who wasn’t with the corps the whole winter, made up some cockamamie excuse as to why he couldn’t play a horn so in true Peter Principle fashion, they appoint him assistant drum major. FF to summer in some Godforsaken place and we were waiting around for something and a couple people weren’t at parade rest.  So he says something stupid like “go to parade rest like we learned in the winter”. Well, me being well… me… I said “How would you know?  You weren’t there in the winter.”  Next thing I know the real DM is dragging me off the field.

 

Edited April 22 by Terri Schehr

[JimF-LowBari]

44 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

 

We had an assistant drum major who wasn’t with the corps the whole winter, made up some cockamamie excuse as to why he couldn’t play a horn so in true Peter Principle fashion, they appoint him assistant drum major. FF to summer in some Godforsaken place and we were waiting around for something and a couple people weren’t at parade rest.  So he says something stupid like “go to parade rest like we learned in the winter”. Well, me being well… me… I said “How would you know?  You weren’t there in the winter.”  Next thing I know the real DM is dragging me off the field.

 

You should have been in a Senior corps. 👍

Had one snare drummer light a cig just before he was told time to do warm ups. Muttered “I ain’t wasting this” and smoked it while warming up with rest of the line. When done he just turned his head and spit it out about 5 feet. Never missed a beat the whole time.

[Terri Schehr]

7 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

You should have been in a Senior corps. 👍

Had one snare drummer light a cig just before he was told time to do warm ups. Muttered “I ain’t wasting this” and smoked it while warming up with rest of the line. When done he just turned his head and spit it out about 5 feet. Never missed a beat the whole time.

I was for two seasons 2000 and 2002 . Much different than juniors way back when.

The worst thing I saw was these old men ogling the Capital Sound color guard in 2000. Absolutely revolting.  

[HockeyDad]

20 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

But whatevs, amirite?  Those reporting must just be weak or too sensitive... "not drum corps material." /s

My favorite is:  they want to destroy the corps / they want the corps to fold.   One need look no further than the screed of a statement from CAE as they exited the stage. A case study in victim blaming. 

Edited April 22 by HockeyDad

[greg_orangecounty]

2 hours ago, FormerXyloWhiz said:

Unfortunately, statistically based on the odds and through the years - all of them.

That might be an overstatement. 

[JimF-LowBari]

33 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

I was for two seasons 2000 and 2002 . Much different than juniors way back when.

The worst thing I saw was these old men ogling the Capital Sound color guard in 2000. Absolutely revolting.  

Yeah I heard a few things in the late 70s from an instructor regarding two of our high school aged guard members.  Then didn’t think too much of it but today 🤮

Edited April 22 by JimF-LowBari

[scheherazadesghost]

Man, I needed some of y'all around when I marched. ACEs drove me to being way too compliant in the face of harassment and abuse.

The two cymbal players/cymbal alum that could've been around to defend us in 04 were otherwise occupied by life its own self. Have stayed connected with them and they lament it beyond words. Tears all around.

Can't really tell at this point if elder alum would've stepped in or if they would've turned a blind eye like alum on staff did. So much bad behavior was normalized and remains that way from what I'm told.

Edited April 22 by scheherazadesghost

[FormerXyloWhiz]

19 minutes ago, greg_orangecounty said:

That might be an overstatement. 

I doubt it.  Drum Corps isn't special and immune from the realities of the world.  Sexual violence is sickeningly common in American life in general:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/fastfact.html

"Sexual violence is common. Over half of women and almost 1 in 3 men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes."

This is only based on what is reported, let alone the unknown unreported (it's vast).  But let's put that aside and go with the data for now.  So to math out some of this data (i'm open to any corrections):

Just shy of 42% of the USA population has experienced sexual violence in their lifetime based on that stat.  A little over 14% have experienced rape.  80% of reported rapes happen before the age of 25. 

Choose any random 5 drum corps members.  2 of them already have, or are likely to, suffer sexual violence in their lifetimes.  Now choose 7.  One of them is likely to suffer rape in their lifetime. 

Choose any corps.  Current capacity of 150 = 63 will suffer sexual violence in their lifetime.  21 of them will potentially suffer rape their lifetime.  17 of those people will experience it before the age of 25 according to the cdc page. 

I don't know the actual membership numbers, but let's say 15 of the corps are at max capacity.  That's 945 people marching this summer that will or already have in their lives suffered sexual assault.  315 of them will or already have in their lives suffered rape.  255 of them will experience it before the age of 25.

Extrapolate it back over the multiple decades many of these corps have existed, I'd be shocked if there is any corps where this has never happened.  And even if a modern corps does everything absolutely right to protect their members, it will still happen.  The sickness is in society at large.  We'll never change what is commonplace by pretending it is exception.