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Officer’s Rights vs. Navy Rules: Urinalysis Dispute Leads to Charges
By Lee Hockstader, Washington Post, 2 September 1988

“In order to produce the urine sample, said Gary R. Myers, Unger's civilian attorney, 'a woman officer has to disrobe; a male officer does not. A woman officer has to face that observer eyeball to eyeball; a man does not. A man looks at a wall.'"

Lt. Elizabeth Susan Unger is the kind of officer the United States Navy usually brags about.A graduate of the first class at the Naval Academy to include women, she is a civil engineer, the wife of a Navy flight officer and the daughter of a former Annapolis chemistry professor.

A Methodist raised in a dry county in the Texas panhandle, she says she has never tasted beer, wine or hard liquor, never seen illegal drugs of any kind and only once took a puff from a cigarette.

"She's kind of a prude, really," said her teetotaling husband, Navy Lt. James Unger.

But at a hearing today at this sprawling base near Chicago, the naval officials accused Unger of disobeying a direct order by refusing to participate in the service's mandatory random urinalysis drug-testing program. Conviction could result in up to five years imprisonment.

Unger says she has no problem with submitting a urine sample, but refuses to submit to the Navy's rule that she urinate "under the direct observation" of another woman.

"I told my commanding officer that I can't be observed," she said in an interview. "I think it's demeaning and degrading. I said I think it's wrong. He said that we make certain sacrifices, we give up certain privileges in the Navy."

Her lawyers say Unger's case, which may be the first of its kind in the military, raises constitutional questions of invasion of privacy and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

They make the point that the Navy treats men and women differently in a number of respects, at times giving women greater privacy by, for example, providing them individual shower stalls in some installations while men shower en masse. A similar distinction, they suggest, should be made in giving drug tests.

“In order to produce the urine sample, said Gary R. Myers, Unger's civilian attorney, "a woman officer has to disrobe; a male officer does not. A woman officer has to face that observer eyeball to eyeball; a man does not. A man looks at a wall."’

Myers and Lt. Robert Harvey, Unger's Navy lawyer, argue that forcing officers to disrobe in front of enlisted personnel also flies in the face of the military's strict policies against fraternization between the two.

The Navy takes the view that the obervation rule -- in effect since random urine testing started in 1982 and amplified last year to include the underlined word "direct" -- is a necessary evil in the quest for a drug-free service.

"Admirals get tested, the female admirals get tested -- it's too big an issue not to comply," Capt. Stephen J. Quigley, Unger's commanding officer, testified at today's hearing.

Privately, some Navy officials also contend that if an officer is permitted to shun the urine-testing procedures, it will undermine the program -- and authority generally -- at Great Lakes. The base, on the shore of Lake Michigan, is the Navy's largest training center and the first stop for thousands of recruits.

If the officer who heard the Navy present its case in today's preliminary hearing agrees, Unger could be court-martialed. The officer, Cmdr. Mark R. Dawson, expects to make his recommendation in two or three weeks.

The facts presented at the hearing today are not in dispute.

On July 11, Unger was told to report to headquarters to submit a urine sample. Although she has been in the service since 1980, it was the first time she had been required to do so -- schooling, frequent transfers and the luck of the draw had resulted in her avoiding such tests.

She had spoken in the past with Quigley, her commanding officer, about her unease with the observation rule. That morning, she went to see him again. He sympathized but held firm: The rule was the rule, he said.

"So I went over and got my hat and walked over to Building One" where the samples are taken, Unger recalled in the interview. "They gave me the bottle and I walked in there to the head with the bottle and I said to the observer, 'I don't want to be observed . . .you can search me if you want to.' She said, 'That's okay.' "

The next day, after word had reached her superiors, her executive officer, Capt. Edward R. Hamm, called Unger in and ordered her to give another sample -- while under "direct observation." She did not.

Unger, whose commitment to the Navy expires next year, is undecided about whether to stay in the service.

"I think I've done a good job, and to get rid of me -- trash you out is what they call it -- for something like this doesn't make sense. I mean, they've put a lot of money into me. I don't see why it's like suddenly I'm no good," she said.

Unger said she will go to prison if necessary but will not change her mind about the test procedures. "I've got a whole stack of National Geographics I can catch up on," she said

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