Jarhead* said:
Hope you guys can hold it together for the next 20 years or so.
Remember how the Marine Corps went to hell the day you left it? You just don't want to know what kinds of videos & photos the Kaneohe Marines (the men, not the women) have been involved in over the last few years.
The Navy also went to hell the day I retired. And the U.S. Naval Academy hasn't been able to put together a
real plebe year since 1978-9, either.
Levity aside, Senior Airman Manhart has now crossed the line and officially qualified for Dilbert's "Weasel of the Year" award. She coulda just said that she submitted her resignation without getting into all the discharge-characterization stuff.
Now that she's pissed somebody off they'll probably try to recall her to active duty for the administrative discharge board. Their choices are honorable, general, or OTHD. I'm betting general with an RE-4 "never let her join the military ever again" re-enlistment code. Heck, the Army probably wouldn't even want her for their Blue To Green program.
Discharge characterization used to be considered important for subsequent employment... about 25 years ago. Now that few employers are veterans, no one pays any attention to the quality of the DD-214. (A couple years ago a Pearl Harbor court-martial separated a guy with a bad conduct discharge & brig time who showed up a year later as a contract security guard at the Navy Exchange.) So Manhart's discharge verbiage is just another desperate plea for publicity. No doubt in a few months she'll be doing a promotional tour with Omarosa.
I wasn't going to drag up old news, but what the heck-- one of COMSUBPAC's Sailors of the Year would also like to see the military figure out their "posing policy":
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,123390,00.html