And I am certainly glad that admissions is staffed with well-educated adults who know how to use quotations properly instead of adults who fabricate quotes and quote things that were never said.
Having someone in high school imply I'm not well-educated gives me a great laugh. Thanks for that. Also, IF you are commissioned into the AF, you very well may have me as your commander one day - I have an 8 year head start on you.
Aglages, I get emotional about this because it falls under a general topic of mistakes and screw-ups that people make. Replace marijuana with honor violations (such as lying or cheating), breaking bones in high risk activities prior to entering Basic, and any kind of risky behavior that doesn't necessarily indicate a pattern of behavior or moral failing.
Why do I get heated about this? In my short time in the AF (4 years USAFA, 4 years commissioned), I have seen a great many people make big mistakes. I've seen many given a second chance and I've seen too many given no chance for equal or lesser mistakes. Of those I've seen given a second chance, the majority learned an important lesson, become pretty awesome mentors for others who have made their screw-ups, and have become amazing officers. Part of what makes them such great officers and mentors today is the learning experience of admitting to their mistake and taking the effort to make it right. Then I saw too many who made a big mistake that was not part of a pattern of behavior given no chance and booted without much thought. Personally, I haven't made any big mistakes that fall in those categories, but I shy from risk more than I should and personally think the risk-averse behavior it breeds may make me a less effective officer. I don't think making poor choices should be encouraged, but when the AF as an institution becomes so risk-averse, we miss many opportunities to correct mistakes and learn from them. I'm of the belief that taking risks is absolutely necessary to learn and improve and fostering an environment where its one strike and you're out causes stagnation. And encouraging positive risk comes with the, well, risk of poor choices.
The bottom line I'm trying to make is, absent a clear pattern of poor behavior, a single event shouldn't be grounds to morally eviscerate and individual or make the immediate judgment of unworthiness (a message that keeps popping up in this long thread). I read a lot of research books in my spare time on behavioral economics, behavioral theory, and similar topics. While I have plenty of anecdotes I alluded to above, there is a lot of research on human behavior that runs counter to much of our assumptions (peer pressure is a big one) that has made me less quick to make a snap decision about a person like admitting to using recreational drugs or engaging in high risk activities. I do snap at people I think do that, hence my hot-headedness in other posts.
So, it really bothers me and makes me hot-headed to see posters come on here and say someone is unworthy of an appointment or being in the AF for smoking a joint when they should have exercised better judgment. And it doesn't matter to me if the OP is a troll, I'm responding to everyone else who has weighed in because it's important for future candidates to know that the officer corps isn't filled with a perfect cadre of saints who view mistakes as evidence of failure. Nowadays the AF is looking for any excuse to eliminate people or further stratify shrinking pools of opportunities. I, personally, think it's a mistake to make one of the criteria any sort of misbehavior (again, that isn't a pattern) a basis to eliminate. Ask me over a beer for a more in-depth discussion as I'd like to spare any more long-windedness from me on the forum. In the past, marijuana use alone was not grounds for elimination and people could be honest and atone. That is not the case right now for the reasons above and it saddens me that USAFA and the AF is looking for only shiny pennies when sometimes the tarnished one is better for the wear.