Doing my Job – part 2a
This is a continuation of legal officer stories.
During one of my stints as Officer of the Deck late at night I sent my junior officer to make an inspection round of all the lookouts. The ones stationed near the bridge were easy to check, but there was also a fantail lookout and one or 2 sailors in the emergency after steering room. The fantail lookout was particularly important. If someone slipped and fell overboard he was their last chance. If no alarm was raised the possibility of locating one lone sailor in the open sea was just about non-existent. In this specific case the man assigned as fantail lookout was found fast asleep at his post. It was hard to wake him, and he was barely coherent when we did. We sent the sailor to sick bay for a quick examination by the ship’s doctor. In contrast to civilian life, there is no privileged doctor patient relationship on board ship. So when the doctor found this sailor was under the influence of barbiturates it became an extra criminal charge.
My recommendation to the Captain was to give this man a court martial. Being asleep on watch was a serious charge by itself. Adding drug use made it particularly bad. I didn’t want anyone using drugs to remain part of the crew of my ship. A court martial conviction would pave the way to throw him out of the navy completely. The level of court martial we could convene was not empowered to order a dishonorable discharge, but a conviction was enough for us to give him a general discharge and send him off the ship. The case looked very simple. The doctor would report that urinalysis had given a positive result for barbiturates and the rest would be routine. How wrong we were.
When the court had heard the testimony of the doctor it was time for arguments by the defense. Our sailor came forward with a very unusual alibi. He said his urine had always tested positive. The president of the court decided to test this theory. The sailor was immediately tested again. He did test positive. But the president of the court wasn’t easily convinced. He ordered the man to be placed in isolation for 24 hours and then tested again. This time the results were negative. We added one more count of using barbiturates to the charge sheet. The man was found guilty and quickly processed off the ship. But that’s not the end of this story.
The doctor told us, after the trial, that we more luck than sense. There are different kinds of barbiturates. Most disappear from the body in 24 hours. But there are some that may continue to give a positive test result for up to 3 days after ingestion. We were fortunate that this sailor had not taken one of the long term pills and continued to test positive even after coming out of isolation.
Wetherhorn 