In 2011, the Army reached its highest population of Soldiers since the early 1990’s. By that point a curious trend had started to appear for those Soldiers with any form of misconduct in their records. In 2012, when it became the stated policy of the Army to downsize to a pre-1940 service strength, this puzzling trend exploded into an understood, if not written, policy of seeking to discharge Soldiers with even minor marks on their records.

Since 2006, the Army has seen an almost 200% increase in General discharges per year while seeing a net decrease in Soldiers. In fact, through the end of 2015, the trend remained, that Soldiers are getting an absurdly high rate of General discharges compared to their counterparts in other service branches. When you see such a big discrepancy between the service branches or between the historical rate of Army General discharges and the present day rate, you should wonder why this is happening, how it’s being done, and what it means for Soldiers coming up on an Administrative Separations Board (Admin Sep Board).

The most common guess as to why this trend towards a population adjusted doubling of Administrative Separations has had such steep rise is the Army being put in a position where they’re being asked to do their mission with an end goal force strength of less than 450,000 soldiers. There’s three ways to accomplish this. Number one, recruit less. Number two, restrict re-enlistments. Number three, thin the ranks through retirement or any other means.

It’s this “any other means” that is an issue for a lot of Soldiers. In one particular case, cited as demonstrating the challenging atmosphere for any soldier with misconduct as part of their record, a Soldier was facing a forced General discharge because of a DUI that occurred thirteen years prior. This story, while exceptional sounding, is becoming common. Soldiers are being pushed unknowingly towards administrative separations boards sometimes more than a decade after any misconduct.

Soldiers need to know the facts if they’re to protect their careers. This is the fact, today:

A Non Judicial Punishment (NJP), while historically looked at as a minor setback, now has career ending consequences. You should get representation if you're facing an Article 15.

Based off recent history there is a good chance that an NJP left unaddressed will result in a General discharge. And depending on factors of your service, many Veterans benefits will be unobtainable with the resulting General discharge.

If you are one of the 45,000 Soldiers (8%) facing Article 15 proceedings this year, you need to consult with an experienced advocate outside of the military system. Your career and a lifetime of benefits are very much in jeopardy when aggressive downsizing mandates are in the same policy conversations as non-judicial punishments.

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Stay Frosty ~ Josh Penner - Core Values Consulting

Core Values Consulting started as a business to support Veterans serving organizations. We now focus on Speaking, Writing, and Strategic Development.

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