OK, I'll bite, what does this (below) even mean? Because to me it butchers the character of the OP
Because OP is acting like a typical 18-20 year old who is going into damage control mode for fear of having the book thrown at him for doing something stupid. His survival instinct is telling him "well, they jacked up the paperwork and maybe if I go to court and get it thrown out, no one will know I got a citation and this will all just go away, and I'll stop being a retarded drunkie."
How do I know? Because I've been there, done that. Thankfully, no zero tolerance policy cost me a livelihood when I went into DC mode and got caught lying about shooting a bottle rocket at someone's house and lit their bush on fire when I was 17. Pissing in public? I bet if we pulled the string on many of our peers we can find a lot worse than that, they just didn't get caught.
I hardly think it's abnormal to go into survival mode or worth crucifying him over it. Hopefully he listens to the guidance on this thread and owns up to it to his CoC. The Navy trains you to tell on yourself and take ownership of your actions. He hasn't learned that yet as a 4/c dicking around with drill once or twice a week for a month and I know for a fact that just being screened for NROTC does not mean one is magically bestowed superior moral character and integrity above everyone else. It's learned through training.
Hopefully, the NROTC unit conveys to OP's friend the seriousness of the commitment that he's making, that he needs to grow up faster than all the other freshman around him, and that he better be a fucking superstar midshipmen from here on out instead of just canning him for being stupid. He's got 4 years of growing up to do before he hits the fleet.