Queen of Beast

Queen of Beast: West Point cadet takes charge of summer training for Class of 2014

Aug 5, 2010
By Mike Strasser, West Point Directorate of Public Affairs and Communications

Story Highlights

• Cadet Basic Training, or Beast Barracks, teaches basic soldiering skills and prepares new cadets for life at West Point.
• The Queen of Beast, West Point Cadet Britanny Fraser, is the CBT Regimental Commander for the second detail of summer training.

Photo credit Mike Strasser, West Point Public Affairs and Communications


West Point Cadet Brittany Fraser, Class of 2011, assumed command of the Cadet Basic Training Regiment July 18 and will steer the cadet cadre in charge of the new cadets to the end of summer training.

WEST POINT, N.Y. (Aug. 5, 2010) -- A few hundred grew to over a thousand strong outside Washington Hall, posing the first hurdle for the new cadet cadre after the change of command ceremony July 18. The Ice Cream Social marked the first event planned and executed by the new Cadet Basic Training detail, and it proved to be a successful start for the cadets in charge.

Firstie Brittany Fraser, the CBTII Regimental Commander, said it also provided them with a boost of confidence that has carried them midway through the summer training known as "Beast Barracks."

Whereas the first cadre detail was responsible for transforming civilians into West Point cadets, the second detail completes the transformation of cadets into Soldiers, Fraser explained. Upperclass cadets are charged with leading the new cadets through basic soldiering skills like marksmanship training, rappelling and first aid.

"The second detail is a lot more field-oriented and provides more intensive training, but for a lot of cadets it's more fun," Fraser said. "They enjoy it more than lectures in a classroom. Personally, I enjoy the military aspect of training more than anything else."

Fraser believes the training new cadets currently receive has improved from what she experienced a few years ago, and most of that credit belongs to the Cow and Firstie cadets who're providing the training. Previously, cadets were charged primarily with escort duties and accountability of new cadets, while teams of active-duty Soldiers provided the hands-on training.

"This year, we had a two-week Leader Training Program where the cadets had to become subject matter experts, or as close to it as possible, on each event they're going to teach."

While active-duty Soldiers still contribute as trainers, evaluators and demonstrators throughout the summer, the recent trend of cadet-driven leadership creates a new dynamic upon cadets in training.

"At least from my perspective, the leadership, the cadet cadre, can learn so much more this way," Fraser said. "And the effect it has on the new cadets is evident, because their (the cadet cadre's) creativity is going during the training."

For example, when planning the Soldier First Responder Training, Fraser wanted the task to be a tactical scenario. The results, she said, were impressive.

"The company commanders wrote their own Operation Orders, found their training sites, requested their own ammo for fire, created their own scenarios and executed," Fraser said. "Each company came up with their own scenarios which were completely different."

As "Queen of Beast," Fraser has been asked by new cadets how she earned command of the new cadet regiment. Fraser said she tends to navigate toward assignments that place her in the field, knee-deep in military training. Last summer, she served as first sergeant during Cadet Field Training, and before that, she earned her Air Assault badge and graduated from Airborne School. Yet, her initial entry into West Point was probably the hardest obstacle she's had to face.

"I had a really rough Plebe year," Fraser said. "Beast was rough for me. The different stressors in the academy really hit my immune system hard and I couldn't (stay) healthy. Then I joined the triathlon team. Being in that atmosphere with other cadets on the team-just their work ethic alone -and their motivation to be good cadets, really pulled me out of the slump I was in. So I went from having a really dreary first semester Plebe year to having a spectacular second semester."

Fraser had a lifelong ambition to join the military, even telling her grandmother when she was seven how she wanted to be a Soldier. She decided to pursue an appointment at the Naval Academy, partly inspired by the movie "Top Gun" to become a fighter pilot. During the application process, she researched all the service academies, ROTC programs and even considered enlistment.

Fraser said it was a last-minute conversion and had to explain to her congressman during the nomination process why she wanted to attend the U.S. Military Academy instead.

"I wanted my life to be about people, and the Army seemed to provide more of that Family-like atmosphere," Fraser said. "Working with people every day and not aircrafts, machines or ships."

After graduation from Ferndale High School in 2006, she attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama-a long way from her rural homestead in Washington State.

"I wasn't accepted right out of high school, which was a humbling experience," Fraser said. "It can be pretty hard, but it was the best decision I could have made because it set me up for success."

Fraser's studies originally focused on a pre-medical degree before her love of language led her to pursue Foreign Area Studies instead. Her first concentration was in kinesiology but she was also taking Arabic for a language. The former Life Sciences major was disappointed to learn that she wouldn't be able to continue another semester of Arabic.

"So I decided on a major I knew I enjoyed, I had fun with, and would look forward to going to class everyday to learn," Fraser, who spent three weeks in Egypt for a Department of Foreign Languages immersion program, said. "It's not only the language aspect; it's the culture and geography. I like studying the Middle East. I think it's one of the most misunderstood cultures in the world."

On Aug. 14, the new cadet regiment will march onto the Plain for the Acceptance Day Parade and officially be accepted into the Corps of cadets as Plebes.

"Our goal is to make this the best Plebe class that West Point has ever had," Fraser said. "And I think we're going to do it; this is a very motivated cadre."

There are different measures of success, and Fraser said one of them will be determined this week during the Hyde Challenge, for both the new cadets and the cadre. The new cadets must use all the knowledge and training they've acquired throughout CBT and apply it to the three-day tactical event. Likewise, the success of the cadet cadre will be gauged on how well they have planned and executed this culminating exercise, and whether they've trained the new cadets well enough to pass such a challenge.

"Success to me is not only evaluating them and knowing if they're proficient in the skills we've taught them, but the fact they all return to West Point," Fraser said. "I would be more than happy to see all the new cadets graduate from CBT, but I know that doesn't always happen. I guess success for me would be them having a sense of pride in what they've done, having completed something that no other CBT class has ever accomplished and having the confidence to be successful going into the academic year."

Her duties as CBTII commander may expire after Acceptance Day, but what Fraser defines as a successful mission remains to be seen.

"Well, 'mission accomplished' to me, is more on how the Plebes do during the academic year as well," Fraser said. "It's still our job and our mission to continue developing those Plebes so they can be successful; and when it's their time to train new cadets, they can be better than we were."

Mindanao Massacre Trial

Maguindanao trial starts: 200 accused and 500 witnesses

By Miko Morelos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:05:00 09/01/2010

Filed Under: Maguindanao Massacre, Crime and Law and Justice, Ampatuan Trial

MANILA, Philippines—Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes opens on Wednesday the trial of the November 2009 Maguindanao massacre, with nearly 200 accused and a list of over 500 witnesses.
The trial will determine whether Andal Ampatuan Jr., whose clan was closely associated with then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and 195 others carried out the slaughter of 57 unarmed civilians including at least 30 media workers in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.
Legal luminaries concede that the trial may last for years.
“If you follow the normal, business-as-usual proceedings in the court, five years may be a good ‘guesstimate,’” said University of the East law dean Amado Valdez, a trial lawyer for about 30 years.
“I’ll be a fool if I give you a time frame,” Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Richard Fadullon told the Inquirer with a chuckle during the last hearing of the pretrial conference two weeks ago.
Fadullon is leading a battery of lawyers, including private counsels, representing the massacre victims.
Ampatuan Jr. and the other alleged masterminds—prominent members of the clan led by ex-Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr.—are in government custody.
One of the 112 suspects being hunted in connection with the massacre has surrendered to authorities, Senior Supt. Agrimero Cruz, spokesperson of the Philippine National Police, said Tuesday.
Ex-PO1 Narkouk Duloan Mascud turned himself in after learning that a warrant had been issued and a corresponding reward put up for his arrest.
Mascud surrendered because “he wanted to clear his name,” Cruz said.
He said Mascud joined the PNP in 1999 and had since been assigned with the Provincial Mobile Group in Maguindanao.
Mascud has been turned over to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group for “proper disposition,” according to Cruz.
The Department of Interior and Local Government has offered a P28-million reward for information leading to the arrest of the other suspects at large.
‘Private offended parties’
Discussing the possible length of the Maguindanao massacre trial, Fadullon compared it to the coup d’ etat case involving the Magdalo soldiers who mounted the Oakwood mutiny in 2003 and demanded then President Arroyo’s resignation.
Fadullon, who was then also part of the prosecuting panel, pointed out that the Oakwood mutiny case only had 31 accused, yet “it took seven years.” The trial proper was completed only early this year, and the case is up for decision.
Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Navera added that because the Maguindanao massacre case involved “private offended parties,” the trial could take much longer.
“Each of the victims has his own circumstances, which will be discussed during the trial,” he said.
Asked how the case would impact the Philippine criminal justice system, Navera said the termination alone of a case of similar magnitude would be a landscape-changing scenario given the number of victims and accused.
“It would be a victory for the criminal justice system to absorb such logistical difficulties,” he said.
‘Abnormal crime’
Valdez concurred with the observation. Once the lawyers wrap up their arguments during the trial, “an overhaul of our rules of procedure” is in order to provide the expeditious resolution of the case, he said.
“The multiplicity of the victims baffles standing jurisprudence,” Valdez said, pointing out that no other crime in Philippine legal history paralleled the Maguindanao massacre in terms of the number of people involved.
“This crime is abnormal and our judicial system is not built for this purpose,” he said.
At the very least, he added, the case was comparable to the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes proceedings because of the sheer number of victims and the fact that the crime was committed by a group.
Valdez recalled that the Allied forces set up tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo to prosecute Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, respectively, for crimes against humanity committed during World War II.
Because the tribunals were set up by the Allies, Valdez said, the proceedings were designed without bureaucratic hitches to ensure the swift completion of the case.
Lawyer Marlon Pagaduan, who represents a number of accused police officers, agreed that the trial would drag on for years with the number of witnesses that the defense and the prosecution intended to call.
Pagaduan said the prosecution had listed over 200 witnesses, and the defense some 300. “You also have to add the number of lawyers who will cross-examine each witness,” he said.
Judge is key
In saying that the trial was sure to take a long time, Valdez pointed out that the prosecution had to link all the accused in terms of who masterminded the crime, who actually carried out the murders, who “facilitated the herding of the victims” to where they were killed, and who, for example, brought the backhoe that dug the victims’ mass grave.
Valdez said the key to the speedy disposition of the case rested solely on Judge Reyes. “She should be able to control the proceedings” in terms of dealing with the requests filed by both parties and admitting witnesses as well, he said.
State prosecutors are expected to present their first witness at Wednesday’s hearing.
Fadullon did not name the person set to take the stand. He cited security reasons, which Reyes allowed.
The Ampatuan lawyers argued their need to prepare for the witness, but the judge suggested that the defense seek a continuance of the proceeding if the need arose.
“We have to prepare for the cross-examination…They have over 100 witnesses,” lawyer Gregorio Narvasa II told the court.
Fadullon, 48, appeared resigned to the fact that the trial would take some time. “Maybe I’ll retire with the case,” he said.
After the preliminaries ended two weeks ago, Bob Dietz, program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said he had no idea how long such a case usually took in Philippine courts.
But one thing remains clear to Dietz: “We want…the ones who ordered this [killing] to be brought to justice.”
‘A matter of conscience’
Judge Reyes has junked “for lack of merit” as many as five motions filed by the Ampatuans seeking her inhibition from the case. Two other motions await resolution.
She said that while she “is certainly not infallible,” she “stands pat on the correctness of the rulings” she made during the bail hearings.
She added, citing a Supreme Court ruling: “There is really no hard and fast rule when it comes to the inhibition of judges. The issue of voluntary inhibition is primarily a matter of conscience and good discretion on the part of the judge.”
According to the defense, Reyes has an “alleged bias” against the accused.
But Reyes said: “The presiding judge wishes to remind the accused that she is not obliged to explain her side relative to the issues raised in [their motions], but shall do so if only to enlighten them.” With reports from Dona Z. Pazzibugan and Julie M. Aurelio

Fraud at Harvard

Harvard Researcher May Have Fabricated Data

By NICHOLAS WADE

Published: August 27, 2010

Harvard authorities have made available information suggesting that Marc Hauser, a star researcher who was put on leave this month, may have fabricated data in a 2002 paper.

“Given the published design of the experiment, my conclusion is that the control condition was fabricated,” said Gerry Altmann, the editor of the journal Cognition, in which the experiment was published.
Dr. Hauser said he expected to have a statement about the Cognition paper available soon. He issued a statement last week saying he was “deeply sorry” and acknowledged having made “significant mistakes” but did not admit to any scientific misconduct.
Dr. Hauser is a leading expert in comparing animal and human mental processes and recently wrote a well-received book, “Moral Minds,” in which he explored the evolutionary basis of morality. An inquiry into his Harvard lab was opened in 2007 after students felt they were being pushed to reach a particular conclusion that they thought was incorrect. Though the inquiry was completed in January this year, Harvard announced only last week that Dr. Hauser had been required to retract the Cognition article, and it supplied no details about the episode.
On Friday, Dr. Altmann said Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, had given him a summary of the part of the confidential faculty inquiry related to the 2002 experiment, a test of whether monkeys could distinguish algebraic rules.
The summary included a description of a videotape recording the monkeys’ reaction to a test stimulus. Standard practice is to alternate a stimulus with a control condition, but no tests of the control condition are present on the videotape. Dr. Altmann, a psychologist at the University of York in England, said it seemed that the control experiments reported in the article were not performed.
Some forms of scientific error, like poor record keeping or even mistaken results, are forgivable, but fabrication of data, if such a charge were to be proved against Dr. Hauser, is usually followed by expulsion from the scientific community.
“There is a difference between breaking the rules and breaking the most sacred of all rules,” said Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia. The failure to have performed a reported control experiment would be “a very serious and perhaps unforgivable offense,” Dr. Haidt said.
Dr. Hauser’s case is unusual, however, because of his substantial contributions to the fields of animal cognition and the basis of morality. Dr. Altmann held out the possibility of redemption. “If he were to give a full and frank account of the errors he made, then the process can start of repatriating him into the community in some form,” he said.
Dr. Hauser’s fall from grace, if it occurs, could cast a shadow over several fields of research until Harvard makes clear the exact nature of the problems found in his lab. Last week, Dr. Smith, the Harvard dean, wrote in a letter to the faculty that he had found Dr. Hauser responsible for eight counts of scientific misconduct. He described these in general terms but did not specify fabrication. An oblique sentence in his letter said that the Cognition paper had been retracted because “the data produced in the published experiments did not support the published findings.”
Scientists trying to assess Dr. Hauser’s oeuvre are likely to take into account another issue besides the eight counts of misconduct. In 1995, Dr. Hauser published that cotton-top tamarins, the monkey species he worked with, could recognize themselves in a mirror. The finding was challenged by the psychologist Gordon Gallup, who asked for the videotapes and has said that he could see no evidence in the monkey’s reactions for what Dr. Hauser had reported. Dr. Hauser later wrote in another paper that he could not repeat the finding.
The small size of the field in which Dr. Hauser worked has contributed to the uncertainty. Only a handful of laboratories have primate colonies available for studying cognition, so few if any researchers could check Dr. Hauser’s claims.
“Marc was the only person working on cotton-top tamarins so far as I know,” said Alison Gopnik, a psychologist who studies infant cognition at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s always a problem in science when we have to depend on one person.”
Many of Dr. Hauser’s experiments involved taking methods used to explore what infants are thinking and applying them to monkeys. In general, he found that the monkeys could do many of the same things as infants. If a substantial part of his work is challenged or doubted, monkeys may turn out to be less smart than recently portrayed.
But his work on morality involved humans and is therefore easier for others to repeat. And much of Dr. Hauser’s morality research has checked out just fine, Dr. Haidt said.
“Hauser has been particularly creative in studying moral psychology in diverse populations, including small-scale societies, patients with brain damage, psychopaths and people with rare genetic disorders that affect their judgments,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 30, 2010
An earlier version of the capsule summary for this article misspelled Marc Hauser's surname as Houser.
New York Times

Legal Eagle

My legal hero: Atticus Finch

The Alabama single father's principles have inspired thousands – and somehow become a point of national controversy in the US

Dahlia Lithwick
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 September 2010 

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. Photograph: AP

It's almost a cliche to say that Atticus Finch is one's legal hero, like saying you like good chocolate or high thread count sheets. Still, I am one of many thousands of people who probably would not have gone to law school were it not for the fictional hero of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a book that turned 50 in July. I'm not alone on this. Civil rights lawyer Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center says Atticus Finch is the reason he became a lawyer, and the name Atticus has soared up the rankings for popular baby names in the past few years, no doubt because of the straitlaced attorney's status among law graduates.
While a handful of grumpy critics have recently taken against Finch for his failure to be more like Thurgood Marshall in the face of his famous defeat at trial, most of us still believe him to be everything a truly great attorney should be: a defender of the voiceless and downtrodden, a protester against mob rule, and the patron saint of hopeless legal causes. The Alabama single father who famously defended a black man, Tom Robinson, who was falsely accused of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow American south, has stood the test of time despite the fact that Atticus is almost too eloquent, ethical, honest and forbearing.
As a high-school student encountering Finch for the first time, I was shattered by his quiet moral certainty, his commitment to non-violence, and his electrifying gift for cross-examination. He represented the rule of sanity over hysteria, principle over passion, and tolerance over fear. Oddly enough, as I've grown older, I've also come to admire his skills as a parent, a professional, a member of his community, and even – anachronistic as it may sound – his dedication to work-life balance as the single parent of two children. Atticus never stops teaching me about the need to integrate your moral, professional and family lives, even when the pressure to separate the two is tremendous.
But above all, as a human, I always return to what may well be the defining line in the book, Atticus's life instruction to his daughter, Scout. As he explains, "If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." In summer 2009, and again this July, the United States was roiled by debate about Barack Obama's promise to appoint a supreme court justice who embodies this quality of "empathy". Scores of critics asserted that judicial empathy is the same as judicial bias; that judges are at their best when they coldly and mechanically apply the law. There is no place for climbing inside anyone else's skin as a judge. There is only truth and cold fact.
How strange it is, that we have come to a place in the national debate about justice when Atticus Finch's mild admonition to his daughter to try to walk a mile in someone else's shoes has become the definition of dangerous judicial activism. While Atticus still has much to teach lawyers about race and violence and prejudice and the rule of law, I have also come to think of him as the patron saint of patient, quiet listening; a quality to which all of us ought to aspire.
Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity writes the Supreme Court Dispatches and Jurisprudence columns