Picture this; a typical Joe Friday night, long hard work week, ppl primarily just want to get a little tipsy and relax a bit, mmmk?  Enter the problem for a certain soldier I know (actually, a lot of soldiers but this guy is prominent this time), he was born on 17 March 1980...meaning he's still a full year away.  Now, enter myself, a farely amiable guy, easy to get along with, easily induced to perform a small favor here and there.  My opinion?  everyone drinks anyways, reagardless of age, it's virtually *espected* that underage soldiers still drink... I wanted some beer myself so I was already on my way to the liquor store...

Now, later that night I went out with Dan dn Joe and others to Bennigans, so I wasn't there to see what happened after I handed over that sixpack...Said soldier went down to the sportsbar, made a ruckus, and was kicked out by the MPs for drunken and disorderly conduct...except he didn't have anything to drink there and command wanted to know where he got his alcohol, or, more to the point, WHO got him his alcohol...

Now, here's my position...as a Legal Specialist, I am expected to be a little above the other soldiers, to be a "paragon of virtue" almost...Any violations of the UCMJ serious enough to warrant a Field Grade action strip me of my MOS...Buying alcohol for a minor is without a doubt such an offense.  Not to mention the fact that any drug violations preclude my becoming a recruiter...

The soldier came to me monday evening and told me his Command Sergeant Major was going to have an audience with him the next morning, and he would be forced to divulge this information.  What he wanted to know is what lie to tell...That didn't sit with me.  yes, it was not good, but i didn't want him to get deeper into it when it was my problem really...

So i bellied up to bar and came forward to tell the Sergeant Major my involvement Tuesday morning before the other soldier came in.  That sergeant major told the brigade sergeant major and he told MY sergeant major.  Tuesday afternoon, at about COB, LTC Davis sat me down and spoke to me for a bit.  In essence, what he told me was that my actions screamed to him "please take my MOS."  He told me I would make an excellent infantryman, and did I want to be an infantryman?  I told him "Sir, that's a hard question for me to answer right now", was it what I had come into the army to be? I told him, "Honestly sir, yes that was what I had originally planned"  He went on to tell me, "Well, I'm not going to do that.  I'm not going to do that and I'll tell you why.  You have a great job, you like doing it, and you're really good at it." 
He then went on to tell me how he would put a letter of reprimand in my records, but that I would be able to "soldier past it and become Sergeant Major of the Army" someday.  I wonder if he had spoken with SFC Wade about my doubts on my job in the week prior...I dunno.  It sure seemed to me like he was trying to make me believe I really did like my job...try to knock it into my head.  I still don't know so much...everything lately has just been such a mess and SFC Wade just doesn't seem to understand-i can't talk to him about it because everytime I do he berates me and chides my work ethic--which only serves to piss me off, rather than settle me down.  I work my ass off and for him to say, we'll just have to work out your priorities, makes me very angry...What I need is for him to get off my back so much so I can actually do some work...

Now he has me coming over twice a day, once before lunch and once before COB...which means at the bare minimum, he'll take up two hours of my workday and I'll have just that much less time to get things accomplished...

grrrrrr.

So now I don't know if I can still get into the corporal recruting program--will this reprimand prevent that?  I don't know yet, i just don't know...  Maybe, if it does prevent, it would be for the best anyway...afterall, I am no salesman...

To be honest about the whole matter, I knew I wasn't going to get an Article 15.  Right now, with what's going on, they can't afford to be without their legal specialist...unlike many of the jobs in the army, where someone can just slide in and do some OJT to get proficient, mine is a job that requires the know how from the get go--even though sometimes my job seems like there isn't too much to it what with all the regs and rules and "instruction" books...there just isn't time to look up every single thing every day...  In fact I even overheard CSM Hebblethwaite (my new CSM) state this issue when Art 15 was brought up...
With this knowledge, it was a bit easier to come forward I think...

Now, to morality...what I did was wrong.  By simply going with the flow and just assuming underage drinking would happen with or without me, I continued a sad tradition.  We have laws to protect us, and a drinking age of 21 years in North Carolina is one of them.  The right thing to do is to acknowledge this fact and take a stand on the issue--not by caving in and going with the flow. 
Now, that's the right thing to do, yes...but honestly, I still don't see underage consumption as a morally wrong thing, as long as the consumer is adult enough to drink responsibly--the problem is with soldiers and civilians who haven't had enough experience with alcohol to use it responsibly--as evidence by this one soldier who got drunk than went and made a big fucking stink...
Theoretically, I should, or at least, could, be angry at this soldier, for not being responsible, or for even coming to me in the first place instead of just sticking to his own guns and not implicating anyone...but i can't.  Yes, he was wrong, but i provided the opportunity, and i should know better than that.

So now, underage drinking---fine, but I won't be around it, and I won't provide it, and i don't want to hear about it, etc.

ON a lighter note...got my DVD drive in on Wednesday and my movies from amazon.com.  I've also found a site online that has the Robotech Macross series available for download, 1st and 2nd generation (about 60 episodes!).  I never got to see them all when I was a kid for whatever reasons...

So yeah...i've been sitting on my ass today and yesterday.  Thursday, however, I was really proud of myself--I got up at 0600 to write a Memorandum for Record for SFC Wade about something that happened at work.  Then Leland and I went to Manhattan Bagel fro breakfast before we dropped his car off for muffler work.  Then I had my tires rotated and got a lube job at Wallmart--we perused the store for about an hour and a half, having all sorts of highjinks type fun--just like AIT...

Went to Dan's luncheon at Monterays and hung out with him for a bit, dropped my car off for the annual North Carolinian Safety Inspection (at the same place Leland had his car done incidentily...)

Then I drank beer and rum and cokes at home while dan took a nap in HIS room so he'd have energy for a date.  He leaves thursday.

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