Army probes allegations of weekly racial slur tradition

The Army has reportedly opened an investigation into allegations that an Alaska-based platoon let soldiers freely make racial jokes about each other and hurl race-based slurs at one another every Thursday.

Lt. Col. Alan Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Alaska command, confirmed the investigation to the Army Times newspaper in an article posted online Thursday.

A staff sergeant and a junior soldier in the platoon spoke with the Gannett-owned newspaper about the alleged practice, known as "Racial Thursdays." Both soldiers asked the newspaper to withhold their names.

"It's degrading to the soldiers," the staff sergeant told the newspaper. "We've had soldiers almost fight over the crap that's going on here."

The staff sergeant, who is black, filed an equal opportunity complaint against the leader of the platoon, who allegedly backed the practice to build camaraderie.

The junior soldier told the newspaper that "Racial Thursdays" wasn't something he expected to come across in the Army.

"The way it was put to me was it was a tradition among the guys," he said. "Every Thursday, they wouldn't make you, you didn't have to participate, but they'd remind you. Everybody would get a joke in or one person would be picked out and everybody would say jokes to that one person."

The Army Times reported that the platoon, part of the Fairbanks-based 1st Stryker Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was in the same unit as an Army private who committed suicide in Afghanistan more than three years ago.

Pvt. Danny Chen killed himself in October 2011 after what prosecutors alleged was physical and emotional abuse from his fellow soldiers because of his Chinese background. Eight soldiers were charged following Chen's suicide.

Brown told the newspaper that the investigation into "Racial Thursdays" was not connected to the Chen case.