The following is an op-ed by a retired U.S. Navy Public Affairs Officer.
Navy Values are not something you can just turn on and off at a moment’s notice. They define a lifestyle that is embodied by the decisions you make both on and off duty. In my last four months in the Navy, my public affairs team handled over 378 drug offense statements. In a single quarter!
These seamen, who decide to abuse illegal drugs, not to mention jeopardizing not only their careers, but possibly the lives of everyone who serves with them, make a conscious decision, and deserve maximum punishment under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
Unfortunately many of these sailors are not being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These men and women need to be made an example of, and should receive, at a minimum, an Other Than Honorable discharge and full loss of all benefits. Their shame should be a stigma that follows them until the day they die.
I don’t want my honorable service, and those of the millions before me, to be sullied by these oxygen thieves who deserve nothing but a special place in hell.
I just pray that the Navy’s limp-wristed, politically correct leadership can see beyond its own short-sighted career-mongering to adjudicate these cases properly, and not bow to pressure from their puppet masters at the White House.
Secretary Mabus, I ask you to do the right thing and purge our ranks of these offenders. Give our military justice system the freedom to show that no matter who you are, drug use will not be tolerated in America’s Navy.
Hunter Biden is a former U.S. Navy officer who retired honorably at the rank of Ensign after more than four months of service to the nation. He now works at the White House on the Armed Force Anti-Substance Abuse Commission and in his spare time volunteers at the American Bar Association Ethics Board.
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