An Iowa National Guard soldier who was deployed to Iraq and later discovered to be a methamphetamine user has been spared a discharge based on his performance overseas.

Spc. Larry Deetz, 37, of the Mason City-based 1133rd Transportation Company was the only one of eight senior Iowa guardsmen to test positive for drug use who fought to stay in the service after returning from the Middle East. All eight had flunked drug tests in Iowa on the eve of their deployment in late 2003, but the results did not become known until after they were activated into the U.S. Army.

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National Guard commanders across the country face the excruciating decision of whether to discipline soldiers returning from Iraq who failed drug tests before they left the United States.

Thirty-seven Iowa Army National Guard troops, briefed months in advance on the possibility of war in the Middle East, tested positive for illegal drugs on the eve of their deployment earlier this year, Army records show.

Despite a "zero-tolerance" policy that initiates discharge papers against every Army soldier who uses drugs, 21 of the Iowa Guard violators were sent by the U.S. Army to assist military operations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

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On social occasions, David England proudly proclaimed his literary heroes as icons from the drug-saturated beat and hippie cultures: "On the Road" author Jack Kerouac and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" author Ken Kesey.

England, second-year president of Des Moines Area Community College, boasted at college functions of bringing Kesey and "Terms of Endearment" author Larry McMurtry together at a Texas college forum after the two writers had been estranged for nearly 20 years.

He even gave his daughter the middle name "Kesey."

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