Good luck to him.

If the Australian Army tried to prosecute a digger for buying beer, there'd be riots. Good luck to him.

I can't figure out why this went beyond Company punishment.
In any case, he'll be back in the States soon, free to buy his friends a beer at will.

Thanks for the well-wishes, James and Paul. Mike's a genius and a smart ass- you'd both like him alot.

What a load of pandering (and double standard) bullshit; I suppose there's no appeal on these sorts of things, especially for an NCO. Sure it was a breach of discipline- in the ADF he may have lost a rank and some service time. That's bloody disgraceful- I'll refer it to some currently serving blokes here to see what they think. BTW, both my brothers are lawyers and I'm 2/3rds of the way from being one, but of course we don't have either admissability or knowledge of the statute, but it certainly seems unduly harsh.

That's bullshit.

I'm sorry but...your boy got screwed.

Yeah, I think he got screwed too. But when it's all said and done, the important part was keeping the jail time to a minimum. They could have imprisoned him for quite a good while.
I imagine they'll keep him in some regional stockade. It beats Leavenworth.

That is a crying shame.
I could be very vulgar in expressing myself, but that would be uncouth, so I won't.

Mannheim instead of Leavenworth?

That was what I was thinking, yes, Greg. When I was in Germany, the jail was Mannheim. It wouldn't make sense to process for Leavenworth if the sentence was only a few months. At least to me it wouldn't.

I asked him which stockade he was going to, but haven't heard back yet. Maybe they've got a little one in Afghanistan they'll hold him in. I don't know yet.

I remember reading articles in the Stars and Stripes about Leavenworth. They're quite old-fashioned there. It's not the Disciplinary Barracks for nothing. Mannheim for sure would be better.

And oh, I was talking with an officer from my old unit who is still in. The best he can figure is that it was a personality conflict that escalated and drew the attention of the Big Green Machine.

Without all of the specifics of this case, it is hard to imagine why this particular sentence was handed down. What else happened after the initial infraction of attempting to procure or actually consuming alcohol? Was there an effort to cover this up? I am in the Army but I'm not in the habit of covering it for overly zealous prosecutions - I do think there is more to the story than I've been able to read here. I can also say that I've seen commissioned officers take career-ending punishment for alcohol related offenses so the previous comments suggesting that the harsh outcome was due to your friends status as an NCO are off base. NCO's are the backbone of the U.S. Army and when one does not live up to the heavy responsibility they shoulder, the outcome can be disasterous for all those around that NCO. All that said, I don't agree with what has been perceived by some as the "warrior-monk" mentality with regard to alcohol use in the Army, but we all know the rules and usually the potential outcome if they are broken.

Wrong thing to do. Poor judgement. The standard procedure would be for the guys find their own beer to celebrate with, then Mike pretends not to notice.

Still, being stripped of everything and sent to jail is pretty harsh.

The "standard procedure" you mentioned didn't work in 1995 when an officer I knew allowed his troops to partake in a cookout with a local group after they had participated in a civil-military operation (road and bridge building)in a desperately poor country. It was the locals' way of saying "thank you". Unfortunately, someone had too much, a fight broke out back at the support base following the cookout, and subsequent to the investigation someone needed to be on the blameline. That fate fell on a very junior officer but he was the senior service member present during the event and could have prevented the troops from having beer(s). Though he never had a beer, as far as I know, it was his career that ended and not the idiot(s) that got into the brawl. It was the Commander's policy that NOBODY had ANY alcohol when they were deployed. As a leader he was obligated to enforce the Commander's policies. The officer didn't go to jail but his career was over before it ever really got started. This brings me back to my earlier question about the charges - what were they? My experience is that if the situation can be put to rest by assigning the least damaging punishment, most commands will usually do just that.

Poor Mike. My heart sank.

I realize it could have been worse, but the punishment seems excessive for the crime.

Cracker it was real bad. What the hell is going on in the Army when this should have been handled with NJP? Court martial for buying his guys a beer? Says more about the Army than Mike. My quals? 5 years active navy and 20 years reserve with one deployment.

Again, there must be more to the charges than buying a beer or even drinking one. The Army doesn't have time to go to the trouble of prosecuting a soldier to this extent for buying a beer. Did he show up to duty drunk? Did he fail to report? Did someone else come to harm because of his actions? It sounds to me like there was more to it than what we've heard or the soldier needs to get an appeal started. Overzealous prosecution for issues that could be resolved with non-judicial punishment would be a morale killer for the entire unit.

DJ, You know as much about it as I do. I asked if there was anything else, he says no. I'm sure he got mouthy.

Even sweet little ol' me got threatened with a Court Martial, so I do know they get awfully uptight sometimes in theater.

I've written to the reporter with the Roanoke Times who was embedded with the 3/116 for the first part of their deployment. Maybe he can scare up something.

If mouthing off is the worst thing he did then there ought to be some attempt on his part to appeal such a harsh and lasting punishment. The fine, reduction in rank, and confinement are bad enough but the dishonorable discharge can have life-long implications and if it is not warranted, it needs to be challenged.