Rituals

Today I'm gonna ask some questions about rituals
The first one:
Are initiation rituals in the military just for fun, or do they serve another purpose?
Well, it's used to educate the soldiers, they use it because people in the military are very polite about everything.

The second:
What are mascots usually symbolic of? Do you know of any traditions associated with mascots?
They represent anything important in sports and in another purposes.

And last one:
What rituals or traditions are there at your school or college? Do the traditions relate to the students' rank in the school? Do freshmen have to show respect to older students in specific ways?
We have a tradition that in Mondays we have an assembly and we sing the American National anthem and the Costa Rica National anthem. No for the other two questions.