There was no compassion or caring people only adults looking to protect their ass from getting in trouble or RPFed. The kids in turn learned to develop the same thick skin and became little tyrants (CMO Messengers) themselves. For the rest of us, we would constantly be on mess work or put on the children's RPF. I wanted to choke when I saw the comment that "some most have cared".
For a small group of us, we were molested down in the basement of the CEO by a man that was still in PAC among us. We had a bus driver who would tie kids up for misbehaving. We were swatted constantly in private or in front of the other kids as the adults were only "following policies on discipline".
We were bred to join the S.O. and forced to sign a contract or go to ethics. We were denied leave to be with our parents if we were down stat or refused to follow orders.
No nanny or teacher can say they taught us anything educational or useful in real life. And no nanny or teacher can deny that abuse was not common or that children cried for their parents only to be yelled at or put on mess work.
We went to a public school twice for short periods and trust me we all were a bunch of rock heads. We went to a elementary school next to CC for a year or less when we were at the CEO and then 1 year or less in a middle school in Burbank.
We were forced to give out Way to Happiness books to pass out in middle school which got us in major trouble with the principal. Often us kids were picked on or bullied constantly. My teacher had to keep me in her class during lunch so that I wouldn't be punched or kicked by other students.
Bottom line is that the Cadet Org was like a concentration camp where our own parents had no choice in our upbringing. Our parents were poor role models and the adults that cared for us were just as bad as they would watch what was going on and do nothing or they were the ones imposing it.
Free speaks the truth and well.
Even after spending the day not learning anything at the CEO, or the school in Burbank, or the one in West Covina, etc. We would then return to the ATA, just to be sent out "on mission", which is when the institutional abuse began in earnest.
Our "missions" consisted of the crappiest jobs available, those that the powers that be did not want to waste SO members on, but were not physically demanding enough for RPFers. Like never ending CF projects, working in the main mess serving all the adults, busing their trays and generally being treated like slave labor. To add to the misery, at least SO members got $30 or $50 (depending on the era), the kids got $0-$2 per week for working 30+ hours.
These super awesome missions would generally continue until late at night, 10pm or later, at which point we would have cal mag forcibly rammed down our throats and then we would be sent to sleep on crappy cots that were half as long as our bodies. We would not be picked up until our parents got off post at 12am or later, if they got off post.
There were two rooms, the big course room and the little course room, with 20+ girls in one and 20+ guys in the other. I remember being overjoyed, like a normal kid would be on Christmas, when we one day got full length old army cots to sleep on, I think I might have even shed a tear. How pathetic is that?
We had no choice in any of this. We were born and bread to be ignorant, vicious and emotionless slaves. It was lord of the flies, supervised by the sea org members too incompetent to hold a "real" post and countenanced, at least tacitly, by "parents" who were too busy saving the world to care about their own children. We were treated in a manner consistent with rowdy and disobedient pets more than actual human beings.
How do parents do that? I have children of my own now and I know without any reservation, that it takes a chilling and demented thoughtlessness to put your child in an environment like that. The fact that to this day most people seem more concerned with how much someone should charge to teach people about mythical aliens in volcanoes, or whether or not Ideal Orgs are on policy blows my mind.
Obviously I am angry that I was cheated and betrayed. I want to make it clear however, that I am not angry at DM specifically and whoever else people are blaming today, or at least no more angry at him than anyone else. I am angry at every single person who saw any Sea Org member under the age of 18, or one of those pathetic malnourished and dirty creatures they called cadets and did not do anything about it.
I see comments all the time on here making fun of how people had to do ethics cycles with 13 year old MAA's like it is a big joke. Fuck you, that is a child who has been lied to and abused. Yet all some people seem to care about is how they gave too much money, or how the "tech" was not standard, how the IAS is the problem, etc.
For any parent trying to delude themselves that their kid was not screwed up by being sent to the cadet org, you are wrong. You committed a heinous "overt". Your kids will tell you what you want to hear, that it was not that bad, that it made them stronger, etc. I know because I have told my parents those same things and still cannot tell them how I really feel. What purpose would it serve anyway, it cannot be undone.