31 Sailors Awaiting Discharge by Navy Over Use of Drugs : Armed forces: The members of the battleship Missouri crew were found guilty in hearings headed by the ship’s captain. Another sailor has already been dismissed.
Thirty-one sailors from the historic battleship Missouri are being processed for discharge and another has been dismissed from the service after admitting they used drugs that included cocaine, LSD, marijuana and amphetamines, Navy officials in Long Beach said Wednesday.
Master Chief Petty Officer John Caffey, a Navy spokesman, said all but one of 33 sailors accused of using the drugs were found guilty of substance abuse charges during non-judicial “captain’s mast†hearings before Capt. Albert Lee Kaiss, commander of the Missouri. One sailor was acquitted.
“No drugs were found aboard the ship,†Caffey said. “The drugs were mostly used on shore during liberty.â€
Two of the sailors complained Wednesday that the hearings and a prior investigation were conducted unfairly, which the Navy denied.
The investigation began Jan. 13, Caffey said, after a sailor told his division officer that he had seen another member of the crew using illegal drugs. While most of those who faced the captain were accused as a result of testimony and evidence gathered during the monthlong investigation, one sailor was caught through the Navy’s random urinalysis program.
“Of 78 interviewed, 33 were referred to the captain, and all but one were found guilty,†Caffey said. “Each man waived the right to an administrative board hearing, and each man waived the right to appeal the captain’s verdict.â€
Sailors convicted under captain’s masts usually face a variety of punishments that include extra duty, reduction in pay, reduction in rank and administrative discharge, Caffey said. But because of the Navy’s new “zero-tolerance†rule regarding drugs, he said, even first offenders receive the most severe penalty--discharges under other than honorable circumstances.
Kaiss’ recommendations for administrative discharges have been forwarded to the Pentagon for final action, Caffey said.
Meanwhile, he said, the 31 sailors whose sentences have not been confirmed are being confined to the ship and to the pier in Long Beach where it is moored. They have not been identified.
Michael Hall, 19, of Vidor, Tex., who said he is one of the 31 awaiting confirmation of his discharge, said that some of the confessions were coerced and that the accused were never confronted by the evidence against them.
“They threatened me with Leavenworth (penitentiary),†Hall said from a pay phone on the pier. “They threatened me with videotapes they didn’t have. When we asked to see the evidence, they wouldn’t show it to us.â€
Hall said he decided not to appeal the captain’s verdict “because I was too fed up to fight any more.â€
The sailor who already has been discharged--identified by the Navy on Wednesday as Eric Thibodeaux, 22, of Boston--has made complaints similar to Hall’s, according to reports published in the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
However, Caffey denied there was coercion and said the accused sailors were shown the evidence against them before they agreed to the captain’s mast hearings.
The hearings were the latest action in the Navy’s continuing battle against substance abuse. Last year, 15 members of the Missouri crew were discharged for using drugs, according to Caffey.
The 49-year-old ship carries battle flags from World War II, the Korean War and the Persian Gulf War. A plaque on a midship deck marks the spot where the Japanese surrendered in 1945.
The 58,000-ton dreadnought, mothballed for 31 years before being returned to service in 1986, is scheduled to be decommissioned again March 31.
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