I was honorably discharged from the Army @ 0949 on November 6, 2008 after much wrestling and less than two months after telling my Battalion XO I'd go to jail before going back to Iraq.
It wasn't easy, but when desertion, doing drugs and deploying aren't options I had little recourse but to just stand my ground.
The characterization is Honorable, but it was for "Unsatisfactory Performance." I had my security clearance locally suspended and so I couldn't do my job or get promoted and they used that to justify my release. Funny thing is my Sergeant Major yanked my clearance in April just to be a dick and it ended up the justification for my release. Best of all, it was just a local suspension. My clearance is still valid through 2010.
According to my battalion commander, my division commander (a major general) had gotten involved in my case and was asking for updates.
For refusing deployment, I could have done maaaaybe five years in military prison on the charges of disobeying a lawful order, missing movement by design, and maaaaybe disrespect. I'm not sure the max punishment for disobeying a lawful order (the Army tried to punish 1LT Ehren Watada for this and lost) but missing movement is two years, though the longest sentence handed out during the current war was 18 months and that was for someone who went AWOL to avoid deployment. The shortest sentence for missing movement (this war) was four months in jail.
Instead of a court martial, I got an honorable discharge. It's bittersweet, but better than jailtime.
See? The Army ain't so tough.
It wasn't easy, but when desertion, doing drugs and deploying aren't options I had little recourse but to just stand my ground.
The characterization is Honorable, but it was for "Unsatisfactory Performance." I had my security clearance locally suspended and so I couldn't do my job or get promoted and they used that to justify my release. Funny thing is my Sergeant Major yanked my clearance in April just to be a dick and it ended up the justification for my release. Best of all, it was just a local suspension. My clearance is still valid through 2010.
According to my battalion commander, my division commander (a major general) had gotten involved in my case and was asking for updates.
For refusing deployment, I could have done maaaaybe five years in military prison on the charges of disobeying a lawful order, missing movement by design, and maaaaybe disrespect. I'm not sure the max punishment for disobeying a lawful order (the Army tried to punish 1LT Ehren Watada for this and lost) but missing movement is two years, though the longest sentence handed out during the current war was 18 months and that was for someone who went AWOL to avoid deployment. The shortest sentence for missing movement (this war) was four months in jail.
Instead of a court martial, I got an honorable discharge. It's bittersweet, but better than jailtime.
See? The Army ain't so tough.
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from Colchester, UK - garrison town. The parachute regiment are posted to Afghanistan most months.