Discipline on the High Seas

Something we preach quite often here, that some seem to forget is that when we become an adult and participate in adult activities, there is a certain level of responsibility and discipline that is inherently accepted. For instance, if you drive a car and are drunk, you're going to get your license taken from you or worse. If you join the military and go to war, you could come back injured. Cause and effect has much more severe consequences than when we were kids playing stick-ball in the street and our baseball broke a window. Whether we agree or not, life as an adult takes on a much more serious tone.That is something that Jasmine N. McClendon found out the hard way. While on restriction for cocaine use, McClendon only worsened her troubles by becoming a distributor of the illicit substances she had just been punished for. However, as soon as she was sent to the brig, the sailor was able to get sober through rehabilitation programs as well as help law enforcement put a serious dent in drug trafficking in the Navy. Through these actions, McClendon was hoping for a less severe punishment than the dishonorable discharge and reduction in rank.It was not going to happen. While we want to sympathize, we have a few things we'd like to point out. Her rate in the Navy was that of Aviation Structural Mechanic Airman. Call us naive, but that seems like a pretty important job to say...the pilots and other crew on the airframe she worked on. Are we to be sympathetic to her fight for lesser charges and forget the endangerment of her fellow sailors? No. Should we condemn her and castigate her for the rest of her days? Younger versions of ourselves may have done so, but in our "old-age," we've tried to be more creative with how we view these situations. She's being punished, luckily nobody was seriously injured due to negligence, she did help NCIS track down other dealers and users. She's getting more of a punishment than Bowe Bergdahl did and for way less. So we'll leave her be.Our only hope is that she and others learn from this tragedy and don't make the same mistakes. Remember when you're an adult, consequences are much more permanent and unrelenting.