Military, drugs, and sports – lots of tolerance

I have often wondered about how sports players get breaks regular people don’t. This applies within the military just as much as in the civilian community. Hypocrisy rains in the name of sports.

A Naval Academy football player is being permitted to continue as a midshipman even after testing positive for drug use, according to multiple sources and Web sites that have sprung up to criticize the decision.

Every day throughout the services young enlisted men and women are being disciplined, including court-martial, for drugs. Their lives are stained forever (this assumes a continuing of the low chance of success for a discharge upgrade). These un-athletic people are subject to:

“The Navy and Naval Academy have a ‘zero tolerance policy’ in regards to drug use, which means that any service member who is suspected of drug use will be administratively processed for separation,” Carpenter said. “This does not mean that there is a policy of mandatory separation — only that the service member be processed for separation.

Marine Corps Times reports.

Right, and the chances that the person won’t be separated are . . . ?

It was the latest example of what critics have said is a culture of special privilege at the Naval Academy for its star athletes, who are said to escape punishment for the same transgressions that get their classmates ejected.

Count me in on this one. I respectfully request that all my clients now and future receive equal treatment.