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Cashiering (or degradation ceremony), generally within military forces, is a ritual dismissal of an individual from some position of responsibility for a breach of discipline.
In the era when British Army officers generally bought their commissions, being cashiered meant that the amount they had paid was lost, as they could not "sell-out" afterwards.
William Calley, the sole person convicted of the My Lai Massacre, was cashiered out instead of receiving a punitive discharge.
Following the failure of the 1935 Greek coup d'état attempt, Lieutenant Colonel Christodoulos Tsigantes, his brother captain Ioannis Tsigantes, colonel Stefanos Sarafis and other participants of the coup were cashiered in a public ceremony.
While most closely associated with Captain Dreyfus, the ceremony of formal degradation () occurred several times in the French military under the Third Republic. At least one other army officer and a naval officer Le Petit Journal, Supplement Illustrate, Page 1 Numero 918, 21 June 1908 were subjected to the ritual of having their swords broken and the insignia, braid and buttons publicly torn from their uniforms, after being found guilty of charges of treason. More commonly, a number of NCOs and private soldiers underwent similar punishments for committing various serious offenses, before execution or imprisonment.
The physical acts of ripping away insignia and breaking swords could be made easier by some prior preparation. A contemporary account in The New York Times of the Dreyfus cashiering in 1894 says:
To prepare for stripping the prisoner of his insignia of rank, the prison tailor yesterday removed all the buttons and stripes from Dreyfus' tunic, the red stripes from his trousers and the regimental number and braid from his collar and cap. These were all replaced with a single stitch so that they could be torn away readily. The condemned man's sword was also filed almost in two, in order that it might be easily broken. The Adjutant's quick movement and apparent effort in breaking the sword was consequently mere pretense, as only a mere touch was necessary.
In the 1964 film Mary Poppins, Mr Banks is cashiered when he is fired from the bank. This involved his flower carnation torn from his lapel, his umbrella being turned inside out and his bowler hat being punched through.
In the 1942 Bugs Bunny short, Fresh Hare, Bugs cashiers Elmer Fudd as a disgrace to the Mounties by tearing away not just his uniform and insignias, but also his undershorts.
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