When the Thai military says cadets can’t bring phones to training, they mean it.
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A video clip that has ignited social media in Thailand this week shows what happened to some officers-in-training who broke that rule.
The video, dubbed “Soldiers Must Endure,” shows a row of uniformed naval cadets with their iPhones and Samsung smart phones on the ground, each one beside a concrete block.
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“You just bought this, right? Expensive, eh?” says the voice of a commanding officer who asks each trainee to state the make of his phone and then orders them to bend down and – “Smash it!”
The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, YouTube and popular Thai social media forums in the past few days, drawing mostly criticism that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Many comments posted online suggested the military confiscated the pricey phones from rule breakers and returned them at the end of the term, rather than destroying them.
