Please help! Son in trouble.

[PNMfromTX]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Texas

My son is on his second six months of limited duty after a devastating accident that required two surgeries and extensive physical therapy. In the meantime, he has been working at the front desk in the Fleet Family Services/Legal Department on base. According to my son, several months ago, someone who was being booted from the military due to "popping" on a drug test was in the office waiting on an appointment. He had pulled the erasers out of the end of several pencils and pushed staples into them and was throwing them up into the acoustical tiles over the desk. The staples made the erasers stick into the tiles like darts. My son was on the phone while this was going on, but asked him to stop as soon as he got off the phone and he did so immediately. My son did not report the incident and considered it more of a nuisance than destructive behavior. The ceiling is quite high and cannot be reached without a ladder, but my son feels that if he could reach them they would pull right out of the tile and there would be no discernable damage, not to mention that the kid was being booted from the military already anyway. He said that the kid threw 4 or 5 erasers into the tile while he was on the phone. He thought that was the end of it.

Today when he went into work he found out that a civilian employee who works in the office accused HIM of doing this yesterday. He says he was not even in the office yesterday as he was at medical most of the day. The civilian employee has made a written statement accusing my son and he was counciled today. He had to sign something acknowledging that an incident occurred and that he was involved, but apparently not admitting guilt. He has been told that this is considered to be destruction of government property and that he may go to Captain's Mast over this. He will meet with the OIC tomorrow.

He was quite upset about all this and asked how much the tile cost ($16) and if he could he just replace it (it seemed like the easiest way to put this behind him at the time). Apparently that was construed as an admission of guilt.

Please help! What should he do?? To make matters worse, he has to continue working with this civilian employee who apparently has decided that she does not like him (he feels she resents him because she has to cover the desk/answer the phones, etc., when he is away at his many appointments/physical therapy, etc.).

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I apologize if this posts twice. I filled out the form once before and it disappeared when I hit the submit button.

THANKS for any help!!!

[fozzy2]

Your son can tell the OIC his side of the story. If he has a decent reputation/record he will probably not get in trouble as there were no witnesses. However, there may be a "crackdown" on the abuse of ceiling tiles. We had one once -- our guys didn't just stick pencils into the ceiling, but had contests to stick scissors, etc. as well. Long story short, 1st Lt. put in a $100 dollar request for replacement ceiling tiles, that was not in the budget, and you would have thunk that we had loose nuclear weapons the way they had Khakis inspecting our ceiling tiles for evidence of damage. That lasted about a week and a half.

By the way, how do you know your son didn't do it? Were you there? ;-)

[PNMfromTX]

Originally Posted by fozzy2

Your son can tell the OIC his side of the story. If he has a decent reputation/record he will probably not get in trouble as there were no witnesses. However, there may be a "crackdown" on the abuse of ceiling tiles. We had one once -- our guys didn't just stick pencils into the ceiling, but had contests to stick scissors, etc. as well. Long story short, 1st Lt. put in a $100 dollar request for replacement ceiling tiles, that was not in the budget, and you would have thunk that we had loose nuclear weapons the way they had Khakis inspecting our ceiling tiles for evidence of damage. That lasted about a week and a half.

By the way, how do you know your son didn't do it? Were you there? ;-)

Thanks for the reply. You're right -- I wasn't there and I don't know he didn't do it. It's certainly a possibility but I do believe him (then again, I'm his mother). Regardless, it seems a bit ridiculous to make such a big deal about something seemingly so insignficant. These aren't scissors, pencils, etc., but staples. He's a good kid and has never been in any trouble -- he's just trying to serve out the last year of his enlistment. I'll keep my fingers crossed that things go well with the OIC tomorrow.

[badapple40]

Have him demand trial by court martial, don't take the mast/NJP.