The first complaint came from a military base called the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. It seemed too ridiculous to be true, but a phone call confirmed the tipoff. As part of a survival training course, 40 soldiers were instructed to hunt, kill, cook and eat tame rabbits and chickens. The plan called for the animals, purchased from a local farmer, to be driven onto the military grounds in a jeep. The soldiers would then “ambush” the jeep and release the animals. Then they would chase down the animals and kill them. Though it was “training” for the humans, the proposed exercise meant fear and death for the rabbits and chickens. Fortunately, PETA’s phone calls and faxes persuaded the commanding officer to cancel the exercise.

But it turned out to be just the beginning. Complaints began coming in from other military bases around the country. An employee at Loring Air Force Base in Maine wrote that she “cannot go another day without writing to make you aware of what is going on.” She reported that soldiers carried live rabbits in a bag for two or three days before bludgeoning them to death. According to one witness, a sergeant boasted, “I am going to have fun with that rabbit...I am going to see how many [soldiers] here have weak stomachs!”

Another whistleblower called to report that members of the Massachusetts National Guard were pulling the heads off live chickens as part of a survival training exercise called “rites of passage.” In a letter to PETA, a National Guard spokesperson called the slaughter an exercise that would “prepare a soldier to fight in today’s modern battlefield”!

“If the fowl is alive when you obtain it, you must kill it. You can kill a fowl by either cutting its head off or by placing its head under a strong stick, placing both your feet on either end of the stick while grasping the bird’s body and holding the wings down, and pulling vigorously until its head is pulled off.” “You can club small mammals or step on them.” —U.S. Army survival training course manual

PETA also obtained documents showing that Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington state currently kills 20 rabbits every week. The order form requests “rabbit[s], any color, 41&Mac218;2 to 6 pounds, live, any breed...” In addition, the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado uses 18 rabbits every week.

As many as 10,000 animals—most of them tame, frightened rabbits and chickens, as well as goats, snakes and turtles—are killed every year at U.S. military bases. And the torment and cruel deaths these animals suffer are absolutely pointless—soldiers stranded in wartime are not likely to find tame bunnies and hens sitting on the battlefields.

PETA has asked the military to stop using animals in “survival skills” courses and has appealed to Congress for help. We need your help, too.

•Get cruelty to animals out of the U.S. military: Contact William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, 1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000; 703-695-5261, and ask him to eliminate the use of animals in survival skills training courses.

•Ask friends and family members in the military to contact PETA’s RIR Department if they hear of animals being killed in survival training courses.