What, me worry?

The other day, I got an email from my brother-in-law with this click-bait subject line: In case you don't have enough to worry about...

Well, personally, I never, ever, ever have enough to worry about. So I took the bait.

Seems that while we’ve all been worrying about whether a certain someone in the Oval Office will decide to press The Button rather than just send a tweet, we should have been worrying about the “elite squad responsible for safeguarding America's nuclear weapons.” Seems that, out in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a bunch of them have been using LSD, Ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana.

Most of the air men involved were from two security units at FE Warren: The 790th Missile Security Forces Squad and the 90th Security Forces Squad. (Source: AP reporting and source material, via ZeroHedge)

These units were responsible for guarding 400 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles  - you know, the ones that are available 24/7 from their underground silos out there in flyover country. The ones that can kill and awful lot of people.

Most of the drug use was when they were off duty – in the ringleader’s apartment, in state parks, and in Denver, where after dropping acid, the fellows went longboarding. As we used to say back in the day, oh wow.

Although it wasn’t on base when these guys were guarding the nukes, still…Especially with LSD, with its flashbacks. (I don’t actually know this first-hand, as I never dropped acid. Too scary, never wanted to be that out of control, etc. But I did have friends who used LSD and I remember quite distinctly spending a college Saturday with a friend coming off a bad trip. Among other stops along our way, we visited the Don Oreone Shrine in Revere, home of a 40 foot statue of the Virgin Mary. That was a trippy enough scene without being on drugs.)

During one courts martial, the air man on trial described their experiences using the drug. One described "bad trips" that led to intense feelings of paranoia. Others described pleasurable sounds, colors and sensations.

"Minutes felt like hours, colors seemed more vibrant and clear," [Kyle] Morrison testified. "In general, I felt more alive." He said he had used LSD in high school, which could have disqualified him from Air Force service; he said that his recruiter told him he should lie about it and that lying about prior drug use was "normal" in the Air Force.

I’m pretty sure that if “prior drug use” disqualified folks from the service, it’d be a lot harder filling the ranks. But it’s interesting that a recruiter advised him to lie. (Reminds me of when my 85 year old Aunt Margaret went to get her license and didn’t want to have to wear glasses in her license picture. I believe the guy at the Registry coached her. Or was it her eye doctor?) And as for those more vibrant colors and feeling more alive. Oh wow.

The drug ring – which included more than 12 members – was tripped up when one of those members posted a pic on Snapchat of himself using grass. This although the club had only two rules: no bad trips (don’t know how that one gets enforced) and no social media (which apparently wasn’t so enforceable either).

You know, given how tech savvy and experienced with social media the young folks are, you’d think they’d have a bit more awareness of how social media comes back, again and again, to bite social media users in the arse.

Surprisingly – to me, anyway – Nickolos Harris, the ringleader and drug procurer, got off pretty easily. Maybe he got off easily because there was some sympathy for the odd spelling of his first name. Or perhaps it was because, once they found Harris, he ratted out the others on his “team.”

Harris was eventually sentenced to five months confinement, as well as 15 days hard labor. However, thanks to his cooperation, he managed to avoid a punitive discharge - though he did pay a more than $5,000 fine in the form of forgone wages…

This does seem kind of light, given that this is the military. But what do I know about military justice? 

"I absolutely just loved altering my mind," he told the military judge, blaming his decisions to use hallucinogens and other drugs on his addictive personality.

I suspect that if I were in the Air Force, stationed out in the middle of nowhere, I would have “absolutely just loved altering my mind”, too.

The men acknowledged that, by taking the drugs, they had put their country in danger. Air man Kyle Morrison, another member of the ring, acknowledged during his court martial that he wouldn't have been able to carry out his duties if called upon to do so while under the influence of LSD.

Hmmmm. All things considered, not being able to carry out his duties might actually be a good thing, no? Depends on whose finger’s on The Button.

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A tip of the AF service cap – if I had one – to Rick T for sending this story my way.