Originally Posted by
HouseMouse
Without going into too much detail the situation is out of my and my commanders hands at this point. My commander and immediate supervisor are on my side, but there's a "zero tolerance" rule in the military where regardless of if I intended to or not I ingested some illicit substance. I guess that kind if gives it away, but if you or anyone have any other questions about my situation you can PM me.
Tough situation, and it can happen with edibles, etc all the rage thee days.
The catch-22 for this one....
Conventional wisdom on addressing ANY sort of adverse history/black mark at an interview is this:
1. Tell them succinctly what happened.
2. Accept FULL responsibility.
3. Tell them what you learned, and how it's made you a better pilot/employee/person whatever.
4. Shut Up. Wait for them to move on to greener pastures of conversation.
For #2 it's usually best just to take responsibility even if it truly was not your fault (which can happen since life is not always fair). But just taking responsibility regardless allows the interviewers to check the "resolved" box and move on. If they have to try to adjudicate who's telling the truth (you or the proper authorities in question), they're going to vapor lock and probably move on to other candidates... they have no way of definitively resolving that case.
If you were 17 and smoked some in HS, you could just confess. But you CANNOT confess to knowingly using illicit substances while a military officer and pilot... there's no coming back from that.
But you still need to follow the formula of 1-4. One idea there might be to accept responsibility for poor SA or not taking adequate precautions to avoid the risk of edibles, etc. Admit to going to parties where questionable activities occurred, dating a girl who used drugs, etc. That way you can show contrition and learn a lesson without admitting to a show-stopping error in judgement. Just an idea. Your chain of command backing you up with references would help with that.
If you tell them you have absolutely no idea how it happened, I suspect you're going to be in the "no possible definitive resolution" category.