So Now, the Marines Are Looking for One More Good Man

Staff Sgt. Michael Jordan ended his 10-year Marine career Thursday with an honorable discharge and a bitter taste in his mouth.

He wasn’t surprised by his re-enlistment code, RE-3B, which he said falsely brands him as a drug user. But he was absolutely floored when the man behind the desk at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station handed him a certificate and medal for good conduct, in addition to his honorable discharge papers.

“It was really funny,” said Jordan, ruefully shaking his head as he sat at the kitchen table of his Tustin apartment. “I was baffled. He (the clerk) even asked me if I wanted it.”

But Jordan, who before single-handedly taking on the Marine Corps over its drug-testing program had planned to re-enlist today, took both the medal and the certificate.

Tested Positive for Marijuana

“It just shows what this is all about,” he said.

What it was all about, Jordan said, was a Marine Corps bureaucracy unwilling to admit the possibility that it may have made a mistake.

Jordan, 31, an aircraft maintenance supervisor assigned to an F-4 fighter jet unit at El Toro, tested positive for marijuana in a surprise drug test last June.

But three follow-up tests within six days of the first were negative. Jordan, married with two small children, said he does not take drugs. The initial test result, he has maintained, was wrong.

The Marine Corps, however, never saw it that way.

Despite his exemplary record, the Marines began dishonorable discharge proceedings against Jordan on the basis of the first drug test. This, the Marines said, was routine.

But after Jordan filed a federal lawsuit, the Marines agreed with the recommendation of a U.S. District Court judge to allow Jordan an honorable discharge. Jordan dropped his suit in exchange.

“My career was sacrificed,” Jordan said of the deal. “It was over something that was erroneous in the beginning, and we never got to the main issue, the urinalysis (drug testing) program.

“What I wanted was for somebody to look at the procedures,” he said of his hope that a trial would expose the fallibility of the testing.

But with that possibility--and his Marine career--behind him, Jordan said he has begun sending out resumes in an attempt to land a managerial position.

Papers May Help

Although his RE-3B re-enlistment code, which Jordan said he will petition to change, effectively prevents him from ever rejoining the military, the honorable discharge papers may help him land a civilian job.

And although Jordan said the good conduct certificate and medal mean nothing to him, they are an apparent recognition of his 10-year record in the Marines before the drug-testing controversy began.

That, at least, is how Jordan said it was explained to him.

“I’m still baffled by it,” he said.

Before leaving the Marine base, Jordan said, he had a talk with his commanding officer.

“He said that he personally liked me,” Jordan recalled, “and he stressed that he was sorry that all this happened, but that he had no choice.”

But Jordan and his wife, Donna, said those words really did nothing to alter his disillusionment with the branch of service that he had hoped to honor.

“This is going to trail him all his life,” Donna Jordan said. “ ‘Michael Jordan,’ they’ll say, ‘he’s the one with the drug test.’ ”

“Yeah, I’m bitter,” Jordan said.

“And I’m really bitter,” his wife interjected.

“But what can you do but go on with life?” Jordan said.