A Marine recruit was hazed so badly by his drill instructor that he needed skin grafts to heal chemical burns

A recruit going through Marine Corps boot camp in 2012 was hazed so badly by his drill instructor that he suffered chemical burns that required skin grafts, according to new documents obtained by Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post.

The drill instructor, former Sgt. Jeffrey VanDyke, served a year in military prison after being convicted in 2014 of cruelty and maltreatment of recruits. But the nature of the hazing that VanDyke carried out on the unnamed recruit was just one of many cases of abuse that have been investigated at Parris Island, S.C. over the past five years.

According to the new documents at The Post, the recruit was ordered by his drill instructor to "perform unauthorized exercises under an upside-down laundry bin on a floor covered in bleach and required to stay in his wet pants for hours." The bleach resulted in second and third-degree chemical burns that "liquefied" the skin on his buttocks, requiring skin grafts and numerous hospital visits.

The Corps' east coast boot camp has been swept up in a hazing scandal since last year, after a recruit committed suicide amid numerous allegations of abuse, to include his drill instructor putting him into an industrial clothing dryer and turning it on, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Since then, a number of drill instructors have been court-martialled on charges of abuse.

Read the full story at The Post >