Expert: John L - 3/28/2009

Question
Hello, myself and two other soldiers are currently attending advansed individual training at Ft. Sam Houston and where on our way to becoming combat medics. However, one night we  made the stupid mistake of sneeking out after bed check and smoking marijuana. We have no been removed from the course and put on tight restriction. We all failed our urinary analysis's and the other two soldiers failed several times. I have only made the mistake to smoke this one occasion and am very worried about the severity of my actions. Im looking to find out what kind of discharges we are facing and if there is anything we could do to lighten out sentence. I may be getting charged with an article 15 regarding disobeying a senior NCO as well as disobeying a Commisioned officer. Any advise or information you could give me would be greatly appretiated.

Thank you for your time,
PFC (not for long) Brown  

Answer
You will most likely be reduced to E1 and discharged.  With the state of recruiting now, I doubt they would keep you.

You cannot be a medic anymore and I doubt they would renegotiate your contract.  Just ask for an uncharacterized discharge with an RE3 and you can try to get back in in the future.

You did mess up bad, hang in there and accept responsibility.