Someone has asked my advice about joining the military. I’m giving him what relavant information I can but I got out of the navy 18 years ago and he’s considering the army. Different services, different circumstances and I know there must be other vast changes since my time. I’ve told him to ask a recruiter but that I would be happy to go along as his maven to translate the promises, lies and damn lies. I’m sure some things have not changed.
The problem he may face is former drug use. A lot of drug use. I will not advise him to lie but I know that just addmitting to puffing a little grass as a teenager was apoint of contention. He’s clean now so has no worries with urinalisys and hair testing is moot as he’s near skinhead now. I don’t recall them doing spinal taps as a normal part of the screening but…
I’d also like to hear from folks who have joined the military more recently. What’s important to know that I may have overlooked? One of the few hard pieces of advices I’ve given is not to just join and let them assign him, but to get some gauaranteed program or training.
As far as the military is concerned “a little lie” is “a lie.” If he admits to whatever criminal acts he did (yes, drug use is a criminal act as far as the military’s concerned), he’ll be okay for the most part. If he keeps ANYTHING back and the background check turns it up, he’s screwed.
It depends on what drugs, when last used, and how often. The CRUITMAN has a detailed chart on this, with appropriate waiver levels. If the drug use wasn’t serious, prolonged, or of any of the harder variety, he should be OK after writing a statement and maybe doing an interview with the NRS’ CO.
Some combinations are unforgivable, some are waiverable, and some are ignorable. Be honest.
Your friends past drug use may affect what kind of security clearance he can get, which in turn will affect what type of jobs he can hold. He should definitely come clean. It won’t keep him from joining up unless they are in connection with felonies. The Army routinely performs drug analysis on everybody (average is once a year, more depending on your unit and job). And FWIW, there is just as big a drug problem in the Army as outside of it. Drugs were always available if you really wanted them, same as in civilian life. Good luck to your friend and I hope he thanks you for going with him.
Oh, BTW: My Recruiting time ended three years ago. The CRUITMAN changes all the time, so make sure to ask a Recruiter. If you don’t want to expose your friend, or if he’s shy, you can quiz him yourself, and call a recruiter to check the charts, before he goes and talks to them, so he’ll know in advance if the answer will be “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”.
The recruiter’s job is to get you into the military. He will hep your friend lie. Several of my friends have joined the air force, one right after she got out of rehab for a serious addiction to methamphetamines. The way it usually works is that you and your recruiter pick a number from 1-10 and that is how many times you tried marijuana. You are told not to admit anything to anyone else about trying other drugs as they can kick you out if it becomes an issue. That’s just from my experience via several friends now in the Air Force.
Thanks, Horseflesh (great username, btw!). The “advice” jkbelle has related can land not only the recruiter in jail, but also the prospective enlistee.
It’s called Fraudulent Enlistment, and has (or at least had) it’s very own catagory in the UCMJ.
Every service has had one or two crappy recruiters get busted every year for Fraudulent Enlistment, nationwide. In the Navy’s case, while I was On The Bag, we had 8600+ recruiters nationwide. We were required to read about every Recruiter that was busted for Fraudulently Enlisting an applicant. In three years, I read seven such events.
That’s an average of 2.33 such events per year, spread over 8600 Recruiters, for an average of 0.027% criminal recruiters per year. Now, there were a far higher percentage of Defective Enlistments, where a Recruiter either failed to get all the facts, or the applicant flat-out lied. About 1% of these were serious enough to result in discharge of the applicant.