Hop forward ten years or so and the Army came up with a new policy. Any NCO who came up "hot" on a Whiz Quiz was automatically processed out of the Army. Junior enlisted got one freebie. The way the policy was worded, any sergeant who had a positive result on a urinalysis would be discharged from the Army whether he was found guilty in Court Martial or not! So we went from not being able to kick a dirt bag to not being able to keep a promising young'un who made a mistake.

I had a staff sergeant who worked for me at Fort Leonard Wood who came up "hot". There was a court martial and despite my belief that it was futile, I appeared at the court martial as a character witness for his defense. I tried to make the case that the policy was unfair and that we would lose young sergeants who had made mistakes. A good man learns from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them. I pointed out the attitudes of years gone by when you weren't considered a seasoned soldier until you had been disciplined or even busted a time or two. We need to keep good ones and this NCO was a good one. And he was found guilty but was not discharged. He received a very light sentence and was allowed to keep his stripes and return to duty. We celebrated his good fortune, but a few days later he found that he had been barred from re-enlisting, so his career was still over, just not today.

Bill was not the first soldier I had under my supervision that got crosswise with drugs (Number one will star in his own article soon). There were many over the years, but only three that I tried to have treated leniently (Bill was the second). My policy had always been that if you don't do it, you don't have to worry about it. If you do do it, you are on your own. Whatever outside influences work on you, in the final analysis, you make the choice...you could have chosen better.

Last I heard, Bill was doing fine in Arizona. I don't know if he ever fired up again.

Jump forward again, 1990 in Ludwigsburg, Germany. In my company I had a female staff sergeant; a squad leader who scored the highest scores in her squad on physical fitness tests, rifle qualification, crew-served weapons qualification (read: machine guns), and her Skill Qualification Test (SQT). The SQT is a measure of proficiency in your chosen field, in this case, motor transport operations. She kept her uniforms sharp, trained her soldiers better than most, and drove a truck as well as any driver in the battalion. In short, an ideal squad leader and an ideal female soldier. She set an example for all the young ladies in the unit to aspire to. One Saturday night after midnight, she ran her little Japanese pick-up truck into a bush at an intersection in Ludwigsburg. She mis-judged a turn and jumped the curb into the bush. If her pick-up had been a four-wheel-drive truck, no one would ever have known. But it wasn't and while she was struggling to get her truck off the bush, the German Police stopped and discovered that she was over the legal limit on her blood/alcohol content. She was arrested, her truck impounded, and her chain of command notified to start the transfer of jurisdiction papers. That meant me.

If she had been lower-ranking, or some NCO without any real visibility, things may have gone easier for her, but the Battalion Commander wanted to ensure that a proper example was set for everyone to see...we were gonna hang this sergeant out to dry. Between the time she was read the charges of her Battalion Article 15 (military's non-judicial punishment...a sort of trial without a trial) and the time it was imposed, she came to my office with her platoon sergeant and some of the other senior NCOs in the company. She was asking me to go to bat for her, to be a character witness, to plead for leniency. At the time, I wasn't really sure what I would do. During the normal course of events in any Article 15 procedure, the chain of command was given the opportunity to speak on behalf of or against the charged individual. They could make recommendations for punishment or plead for leniency. I had stood in front of my company a dozen times during safety briefings and warned them that if they came up with a DUI, I would recommend the harshest of punishments. They would find no supporter in my office. But in my heart, I did not want this soldier to go down in flames. The same old conundrum...do we give people the opportunity to change or do we flush them out and look for someone better?

As we sat in the outer office, waiting for the BC to call us in for the Article 15, I still wasn't sure what I would contribute to the discussion. We were ushered into the office. The sergeant reported to the commander; he reviewed the charges with her then asked if she had anything to say in her defense. She talked about her successes as an NCO, which were impressive, and her love of the Army and what it had meant to her. When she was finished, the commander asked her to step outside for a few moments. He then asked the platoon sergeant what he thought of the soldier and what would be a fitting punishment. The platoon sergeant pleaded for leniency; he reiterated her qualifications as a leader, and finally he promised to keep a close watch on her to ensure nothing like this ever happened again. Next it was the lieutenant's turn. It is harder for an officer to plead for a soldier; his career rides on the evaluations given by his battalion commanders and he cannot afford to be perceived as weak. On the other hand, he can't be seen as uncaring, either. Rough line to walk. The lieutenant gave a less enthusiastic plea, but it was a plea nonetheless. The Battalion Commander turned to me. I still wasn't sure how I felt about the proceedings. I knew how I felt about the soldier. I loved her like one of my own kids. She was a sparkling example of what you want a squad leader to be...gender notwithstanding. I hesitated for a moment. I could see the Sergeant Major looking perturbed...he expected all the NCOs to be tough on drugs and was disappointed in the platoon sergeant's lack of resolve in the matter. The BC was about to ask me again when I finally spoke up. I told him everything I have just told you. In much greater detail. In proclaiming my feelings on the matter, I came to my own resolve (and she became #3). I asked the BC to save her stripes, to be as lenient as he could without putting a hole in any of our credibility. When he turned to my commander, the captain just said, "What he said".

She was given a maximum fine, a suspended reduction in rank, restriction to the company area and extra duty for ninety days. And they transferred her to another company. She was to be used in operations or some other capacity other than direct leadership. All in all, it was a fairly successful deal. But I lost my best squad leader. She went to my buddy Bob's company. A few days later I asked him where he had put her. "I gave her a squad in first platoon." he said. I picked my jaw up off the floor and asked how he had gotten away with that. He said he hadn't asked anyone, he had just done it. He said he wasn't about to waste a valuable asset like her at a desk. By the time anyone who mattered found out, everything would be cooled off and no one would care.

Bob was right. A couple of months later we were notified that we were on our way to DESERT SHIELD, and no one cared about history anymore; everything was focused on the next war. The "Stop-Loss" order stipulated that all separation actions would be frozen regardless of the circumstances. I guess it didn't matter anymore how many joints you had toked or how many bushes you had run over; we had us a war and everyone was gonna go! It seems we'd come full circle.

She did a great job in the desert, by the way, and everywhere else she went after that. The next DUIs came and went and I never heard the expected peep about the treatment she got; even Joe Willy knows quality when he sees it.