Drug Testing for Officers
Harry Summers (Op-Ed Page, Sept. 8) makes a case for exempting military officers from random urinalysis drug-testing. His reasoning is that to require commissioned officers to provide urine specimens is to call into question “the honor of the officer corps.” He quotes, approvingly, the Navy lieutenant who refused to provide a sample, and who called the procedure “demeaning and degrading.”
I am a career Navy petty officer with 16 years of service, and I recently served as urinalysis program coordinator for a command to which I was attached. I was also sometimes called upon to observe others providing samples, and of course when it was my turn, someone was there to observe me.
Having talked with many individuals under such circumstances, I can’t recall a single one who actually looked forward to providing a sample or to being watched while doing so, and many individuals--of all ages, ranks and levels of seniority--expressed to me a very deep-felt resentment at what they saw as both an invasion of privacy and an unwarranted questioning of their personal integrity.
The only aspects of the program, as I see it, that have made tolerable an undignified and constitutionally questionable procedure are: 1) the fact of the dramatic decrease in the use of illegal drugs among service members (of all ranks) and 2) the knowledge that no one is exempt from the program due to rank or position.
In education, background, life style and off-duty pursuits and interests, today’s officer and enlisted ranks are not that different. In the degree to which individual members of the two groups are dedicated to honorably serving and defending our country, and are entitled to trust, honor and dignity, there is no difference.
Summers states that an officer’s commission begins with the words “Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities of. . . .” I’ve read those words before . . . on my certificate of designation as a Navy petty officer.
J. S. GINGERICH
Bellflower